The World Bank funded Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) launched a farm field school sub project in the Thirappane agrarian development division in the Anuradhapura district.
The purpose is to conduct a three year training program for farmers and agriculture and agrarian extension officers in 11 poverty stricken districts under the CSIAP.
The eleven selected districts are Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Batticaloa, Ampara, Moneragala, Hambantota, Puttalam and Kurunegala. It is learnt that under the first phase, 2,700 selected farmers and field extension officers are to be trained to promote climate smart agriculture technologies and practices.
The CSIAP which is financed by the World Bank is being implemented by the Agriculture Ministry and designed to cover 258 Grama Niladhari divisions in the 11 districts. The total cost of the CSIAP is US $ 110 million covering a project area of over 375,000 hectares and a population of around 500,000.
 |
| Farmers engaged in field training |
The basic concept of the CSIAP is to develop 136 cascades in 22 sub watersheds in 12 river basins. It includes the rehabilitation of 1,061 small tanks under which the command area is 59,506 acres with 46,531 beneficiary farmer families.
The CSIAP bears Rs. 146.7 million from the total project cost of Rs. 165.2 million in Thirappane, Mannakulama farm field school. The CSIAP and the Anuradhapura Mahailluppallama Field Crop Research and Development Institute (FCRDI) have agreed in principle to work in collaboration to develop the Mannakkulama farm as a climate smart agriculture farm field school to provide climate smart agriculture training for both farmers and officials.
It is envisaged that the field farm school will be a great asset to the FCRDI and the Agriculture Ministry.
A CSIAP’s spokesman told the Sunday Observer that the training of farmers has started already and 150 farmers have been trained so far on the basis of a batch of 25 trainees in each session duration. The FCRDI has allocated a spacious building belonging to it in Mahailluppallama for providing residential accommodation facilities for the trainee farmers and officials at the Thirappane, Mannakkulama Field Farm School. The training of the 7th batch of selected farmers is now in progress.