COSMI urges Sri Lanka to engage private sector in milestone strategy switch 

Sri Lanka’s new economic focus of agricultural sector revival is timely and a welcome step as the ‘engine of the economy’ that will make the new initiative sustainable in the medium to long term. 
“We commend President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s decision to assist agriculture and key industries in all districts. Giving priority to build the economy based on agriculture is in line with the country’s social makeup-and more so with emerging global food security issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Inclusion of the private sector, which contributes more than 50 per cent to the economy is the missing link to make this new strategy sustainable,” said COSMI Founder President Nawaz Rajabdeen in a media statement.
“Enlisting the private sector which is equipped with many resources including supply chain capacities, in this new initiative could be exactly what the Sri Lankan agri-sector needs to lift itself up. As the engine of our economic growth, the private sector can help unlock the full capacity in Sri Lanka’s agriculture and crops. The private sector’s resilience, low waste, demand driven production, productivity and process efficiencies can be introduced to the agri-sector while the private sector can benefit from locally-made, ready supply of agri-products and raw materials coming to them directly from the farm at farm-gate prices. There are clear win-wins for both sectors, with an overall final food security guarantee for the country on such a collaboration,” said Mr. Rajabdeen

He proposed that a viable way to forge this partnership is by mobilizing the existing chamber network in the country. This network in turn can get Sri Lanka’s agri-sector the much needed storage, logistics, farming technologies and waste-reduced delivery and most importantly, the global trade and export linkages. 
“Our private sector considers the chambers as an asset. Just as we believe SMEs are a key driver of economy, we also believe that agri-smallholders to be a key driver in local agriculture –and this is a strong network of its own that can be used in the agri-revival. Therefore we propose that development projects at regional and district levels to target agro-based industries, livestock farming, light metal industries, and other livelihood projects and joined by private investors, and SMEs. This can commence immediately with the participation of the women and youth entrepreneurs from all the districts, via the private businesses, regional and district chamber organisations and other trade associations of MSMEs. The Public Private Partnership (PPP) model can be leveraged for success in this initiative in medium and large scale private sector-agro-industry partnerships,” he added in the statement. 
Almost half of the rural farmers in Sri Lanka are small scale farmers.