Sri Lanka Egg Producers Association Executive Director S.M.Premaratne said a program to increase the local egg production will be launched as a large amount of foreign exchange is spent to import eggs at present. When the country is faced with an economic crisis, the attention of Government authorities has to be focussed as early as possible. Premaratne told a meeting of poultry farmers of the Kurunegala district at the Kurunegala Agrarian Services centre on Friday (December 29) that if unemployed youth are encouraged to start poultry farms and provide them with thefacilities, the rate of unemployment among youth could also be reduced to a certain extent. More than 1,500 million eggs were imported to Sri Lanka in the recent past to meet the demand of consumers during the festive season, he said.
Premaratne said that the cost of production of eggs can be reduced if tax concessions are introduced to the essential raw materials that are currently imported to manufacture animal feed. Local producers should be encouraged by offering them incentives to increase local products instead of importing almost everything to the country.
Government authorities should look into ways and means of increasing local products with long- term plans to save our country from the present economic crisis. This is not so difficult if proper management skills and strategies are iemployed in the near future, he said.
Around 15,000 school-leavers will be trained in the animal husbandry industry during the first two months of this year under the patronage of the Government to step up the production of eggs within the country with local resources, he added.
