Minister Athulathmudali’s skill and application at the Ministry of Agriculture

The Department of Agriculture was one of the few government departments that functioned away from Colombo. It was located in Peradeniya.

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It was one of the largest departments of government with a staff of something like 15,000. The Department of Minor Export Crops was also located in Peradeniya. So was the Department of Animal Production and Health. We were perhaps the Ministry with the largest number of departments located out of Colombo. Minister Athulathmudali was keen to visit these departments. He was also deeply interested in personally inspecting and spending time in the large agricultural infrastructure situated at Gannoruwa, Peradeniya.

These included the department's test fields, on which various crops were being tried out on a field trial basis; The Soya Bean Research Centre; the Food Technology Centre; the Central Agricultural Research Institute; the Plant Genetic Resource Centre and others. Close by were the Veterinary Research Centre and the University of Peradeniya's Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of Veterinary Science. The whole area was a very large, and almost contiguous agricultural and veterinary science complex.

Catching a weekend, we spent three days at meetings and briefings at these complexes, and visits to the Departments of Agriculture and Minor Exports. The Minister was unhappy at the appellation "Minor Exports." His view was that this name was somewhat demoralizing and had connotations of activities that were unimportant. He thought that crops such as coffee, cocoa, cardamoms, cloves, etc., should be developed as major exports. Later he legislated to change the name to the Department of Export Agriculture.