The Cabinet approved the Cabinet Paper presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to provide loans under the concession base to increase the entrepreneurial capacity of women engaged in small businesses in the rural sector, and accordingly an amount of Rs. 2,000 million was allocated for this purpose this year, said Agriculture and Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera.
The Minister stated this while participating in a ceremony to benefit the farming families of Haguranketha Galaudagala village as the first village to start the Youth Agri Entrepreneurship Village Week.
The event was held at Galaudagala Primary School. MP S. B. Dissanayake and group of Government officials participated. Agricultural implements, chicken chicks and coffee plants, arecanut plants and many other types of plants were also distributed to the families selected for various agricultural projects.
The Government has allocated an amount of Rs.1,600 million to the 160 villages at the rate of Rs. 10 million per village for the implementation of projects identified after a participatory Research conducted in 160 villages selected under the Youth Agri Entrepreneurship Village Programme.
Agriculture and Plantation Industries Minister also said: “We started the Youth Agri-Entrepreneurship Village programme to attract the youth community to agriculture. Instead of the programmes implemented by the Ministers so far, for the first time we are providing financial allocations and other technical advice and all necessary support to the projects selected according to the capabilities of the people.
“Our goal is to create an economically strong village. Today’s politicians and Government officials, if asked if they can show a complete village built during their service, they have not prepared a village that can be shown to anyone. Therefore, it is our goal to develop these 160 villages as economically and agriculturally perfect villages. We are trying to create a successful agricultural village that will be a role model for everyone.
MP S. B. Dissanayake stated: “This country was once on a strong base economically as well as agriculture. Some of our agricultural sectors as well as the fishing sector do not have a significant contribution to our national income so far. But if we try, there are sectors in our country that can contribute the most to the national income. Also, coffee cultivation is a sector that has never received attention.
“Sri Lankan coffee is in high demand internationally. But at least coffee does not contribute even one tenth to the national income. Therefore, these sectors should be expanded.
This Youth Agri-Entrepreneurship Village programme is good. This arrangement should be made successful by the people of the respective villages. The Government can provide the necessary resources”.
A programme was also held to inform the public about the implementation of the Youth Agricultural Village Programme by the officials of the agriculture departments.
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