The Chinese gift of a two wheeled tractor factory in Sri Lanka – please refuse

What is it with our politicians? They take anything that people give us without a thought about the pros and cons!!! The latest is the 2 wheel tractor factory that is claimed will help ease the great need for such in the Northern Province, once the land opens up for development. Please don’t mess up the North, in the way these same self-serving politicians have messed up the South. Giving a farmer a two-wheeled tractor is a death sentence, forever impoverishing people to the land.

Trust me, I know. It enslaves one struggling to survive in the harsh world of agriculture where not a farmer with a two-wheeled tractor in SL makes a decent living. The land to tractor ratio, as well as the heavy wastage of imported energy, namely diesel per hectare tilled or ploughed is just unforgivable. A four wheel tractor’s energy usage is less than a quarter of the two wheel for the same work, and in fact better and faster and more productive. Just as the Tsunami, the tractor driven thresher has now given way to the Combine Harvester, the Two wheeled tractor should be consigned to the annals of history. The Chinese version that is being envisaged is neither here nor there, too heavy for the mud and not powerful enough for the dry fields, the former which can be tackled by the lighter and less powerful Kubotas, and the latter which will more efficiently be done by the four wheeled varieties.

In the interests of improving the productivity of the agriculture we must as soon as practical, direct our best people to work in productive larger extent farm-lands. Do not give landless peasants land for agriculture. A few perches for a home is quite sufficient. We need the best skills to go into farming, even those with the best education in the land, leaving these supposed farmers a better alternative of training them in more productive non farm employment.

It is extremely time consuming (read that also as unproductive) to change wheels, ploughs rotaries, and sort out all the niggly things that can go wrong with Chinese made products where razors need replacement at regular intervals and maintenance is a continuous process. It just is not worth it. Please please don’t let our country down again.

It is amazing how these stupid projects are lapped up. I know as there was a race amongst some of the greedy I know to get this project for themselves. That was so they could make some money along the way without the slightest knowledge of farming or its usefulness for the intended purpose. I have had to learn from costly mistakes and I don’t want others to make the same mistake.

I do not have a hidden agenda, all I want is for us to produce twice the current food output for no extra effort, and possible with a considerable reduction in the numbers currently engaged in agriculture, where they are enslaved by the very laws and rules by which the land is given to them with conditions attached by the government. I just hate to see so many farmers trying to work unproductive paddy fields using old methods out of fear their lands will be taken over. It is costing them twice the cost of the rice to actually plant the land, which can only be productively cultivate using capital intensive means.

Is it an old factory that is being dismantled and sent here, so we become dependent on Chinese spare parts. Please spare a thought!!