Colombo, sugar cane farmers: give us back our land

The People's Alliance for Land Rights has delivered a report to the new government highlighting the injustices faced by farmers: families have lost ownership over land, which is dedicated to this monoculture even when it is unsuitable.

Colombo (Asia News) - ‘The government should initiate a process to investigate the historical injustice of land acquisition for sugarcane cultivation in Ampara district’. This is according to a research paper published by the People's Alliance for Land Rights (PARL). An independent commission ‘should examine land rights violations and methods to return these lands to the original owners.

In cases where these lands have been used by other farmers for a long time, the original owners should receive compensation or alternative land,' continues the document entitled “Issues affecting sugarcane farmers in Hingurana” in the east of the country.

The report investigated the injustices suffered by sugarcane farmers. These are families who have lost their land since 1965 due to the acquisition of land for sugarcane cultivation alone. Although in some cases solutions have been found (on the condition that sugarcane cultivation continues) the ownership of the land has not been transferred. Many lands belonged to Muslim farmers and their land was given to Sinhalese farmers, also generating ethnic tensions.

PARL handed over the report to the Prime Minister of the new Sri Lankan government, Harini Amarasuriya, in the hope that a solution could be found to a problem that has existed for 30 years. ‘Previous governments have also talked about it in Parliament.

But it is a crisis that has not been answered and is still forgotten,' Priyankara Costa, coordinator of the Praja Abhilashi Network, affiliated to the PARL organisation, told AsiaNews. Priyankara Costa went on to say that the crisis directly affects more than 2,500 families living in 10 villages in five divisions of Hingurana, in the Eastern Province, who cultivate sugarcane on more than 5,000 acres.

The report pointed out that the farmers became debtors when the company for which they were hired took loans in the name of the farmers. Several lands where monoculture has been established are also not suitable for sugarcane. ‘According to the soil analysis conducted earlier, the land that is not suitable for sugarcane cultivation should be used for other crops. That is why we expect the government to take the most appropriate and suitable measures after discussion with the people concerned,' Priyankara Costa further said.

In September, the Marxist-inspired Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected president after decades of ruling political dynasties and years of severe economic crisis due to the financial default announced in April 2022. ‘We urge the new authorities and government to provide the solution and grant ownership of the land through a sustainable work plan,’ Costa added.

In the PARL document handed over to the executive, a number of solutions are listed, to be implemented together with the Sri Lanka Sugarcane Research Institute and the Ministry of Agriculture: a land valuation, a pricing mechanism so that farmers can get a fair price for their harvest, technical assistance. The district secretary, as a representative of the government, which owns 51 per cent of the company's shares, should work closely with the farmers and their organisations and should represent their voice in the decision-making platforms, the survey further pointed out.