Abstract:
Organic agriculture plays a very significant role in meeting the food production requirement and sustainable development in Sri Lanka. As a country with full of natural resources, Sri Lanka has a great potential to fulfill the considerable portion of evergrowing market demand for organic products in the world. Sri Lankan communities also have a strong natural inclination towards traditional agriculture. Thus, this research was conducted to study the problems of organic farming, existing policies on organic farming, policy gaps and suggest future policy needs and strategies. Research papers, journal articles, project reports and survey data were used to gather information and they were summarized under each objective. Results revealed that although most of the Sri Lankan farmers have background knowledge about traditional organic farming, by now only a small number of rural farmers practice it in small scales. Thus, as a whole, Sri Lanka is still in the initial stage with regard to organic farming. Also the expected outcomes of organic agriculture are different among the various stakeholders and no adequate solutions to address certain issues in the sector. Even though Sri Lankan government has formulated policies for agriculture, there is no proper policy framework for organic farming in the country and it is still in its initial phase. Thus, the necessary background including policies and programs for the development of modern organic farming in the country targeting the export market is at a poor state and encouragement from the government compared to many other countries is also at a lower level. Therefore, provisions of the institutional support required for organic agriculture in terms of providing scientific basis of organic practices are timely important.
