Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera, Minister of Agriculture says that 1000 million Rupees will be allocated this year to attract the Youth community to Agriculture.

Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera, Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries stated that an amount of 1000 million rupees has been set aside this year to implement programs to attract the youth community to agriculture in this country.

The Minister expressed these views while participating in the observation of the capsicum, chili and tomato plantations cultivated in several protected houses by Mr. Sanjeeva Amarakon, a young man living in the Ratmale area of ​​Nagollagama recently.

Mr. Sanjeeva Amarakon who’s a young graduate is a public employee by profession. He has successfully cultivated capsicum and tomatoes in 06 protected houses using new technology.

Although the vegetable crops were destroyed due to heavy rains in the past few days, vegetables grown in these protected houses have been very successful.

Mr. Sanjeeva Amarakon mentioned that he is getting a very high price for the harvest from his crops and also mentioned that he has earned a larger income due to the high price of vegetables prevailed in recent days.

Mr. Sanjeeva has also stated that he is receiving large orders from supermarkets in order to purchase the vegetables grown by himself.

Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera, Minister of Agriculture who expressed his views here –

The price of vegetables in our country has increased rapidly in recent days. Most of the vegetable crops were destroyed due to the rain. But due to the cultivation in the protected houses provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, vegetables required by the country reached the market to some extent.

We have also allocated financial allocations to popularize the cultivation in protected houses in 2023. We have provided financial allocations especially through the Department of Agrarian Development as well as under our foreign projects. Accordingly, we are going to provide financial allocations to the youth community to popularize the cultivation in protected houses in 2024. We have allocated 1000 million rupees for that. 80 percent of the farmers in our country are elderly farmers over 50 years old. But the youth community is around 20 percent. The young community has no faith in the agriculture of our country. Therefore, our goal is to attract as many young people as possible. We have started many special programs for that. We initiated seven youth entrepreneurship villages last year.

Our country needs youths like Sanjeeva Amarakon. Despite going to a government job on the insistence of his father, he earns a larger income from vegetable cultivation. It is clear that he will become a good entrepreneur in a few years. Many young people are not interested in agriculture at present. They are looking for government jobs. The Minister has also stated that if youths interested in agriculture are given one million rupees each and they are equipped with new technical knowledge required for the cultivation, he is sure that the youth of this country will never ask for government jobs.

Mr. D.B. Herath, State Minister of Livestock also participated on this occasion.