• Express concerns about the lack of a proper database

The National Agrarians Unity has leveled serious allegations against the Ministry of Agriculture, accusing it of disseminating false crop inspection and production data to the public without conducting proper field studies.

The group’s President Anuradha Tennakoon, speaking to The Daily Morning, claimed that the ministry’s reports are based merely on “phone calls made to a few farmers” rather than rigorous on-ground assessments. “The crop inspection reports are completely false and the production calculation is problematic,” Tennakoon stated. He further expressed concern that such inaccurate data undermines the country’s agricultural planning, noting “still our country has no proper database.”

Tennakoon also criticised the structure of the Department of Agriculture, arguing that it is overly regulated by academic scholars in agriculture when what farmers need is practical, data-driven forecasting. He proposed that the department should instead focus on scientific data and statistics to predict future crop production, leveraging the expertise of statistics scholars for accurate planning.

A key point of his criticism was the apparent lack of a proper Government plan or database detailing the annual production and consumption of crops. He emphasised that without these crucial details, formulating effective future agricultural policies is impossible. The responsibility for implementing these plans, he added, falls to the ‘Socio-Economics and Planning Centre’ of the Department of Agriculture, which he accused of being “inefficient and neglecting its total responsibility”.

Attempts by The Daily Morning to contact the Department of Agriculture for a response to these allegations were unsuccessful.