Dear Mr. Peter Govert/ Ms. Maria Verhoeven/ Mr.Frans Hamer,ICCO /Ms. Linda Elswick

This letter is being written by P.D. Gunathilake, Coordinator, Devasarana Development Center, Ibbagamuwa and by Sarath Fernando, Secretary, Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR),Sri Lanka, in response to the recommendations made for FAO and other stake holders and the Letter of presentation by BBO.

We studied these documents on "multifunctional charactor of Land use" carefully and we would like to subscribe to the contents of the conclusions and recommendations to FAO and others. We would like our organisations mentioned when presenting the document to the Conference.

We would also like to circulate these recommendations to other interested organisations in Sri Lanka. So we would be grateful if you could send these documents by E-mail to this address( above), as early as possible. We will also publish the same in the monthly Journal "Sandeshaya" published by MONLAR in Sinhala.

While subscribing to the overall recommendations we would like to emphasize the following:

Multifunctional land use:

We support recommendation no.1 with emphasise on the need to prevent land being converted increasingly and more fully to a "Private means of production".

In Sri Lanka the World Bank has recommended that "Land Market should be freed" with the objective of encouraging ( in fact of compelling indirectly ) the small scale rural farmers to sell their land and move out of Agriculture. This is said to be necessary, since most of the small farmers in Sri Lanka (1.8 million families) now cultivate paddy and other domestic food crops, which are said to be of "low value" by the world bank. Their recommendation therefore is to expidite the process of this land being transfered to commercial and more powereful producers for utilization in cultivating "high value" crops (Mainly export crops, that are not consumed by the local population ) These recommendations are in the "Non plantation Sector Policy Alternatives".World Bank Report No.14546 CE in March, 1996.

This would lead to a serious loss of other uses such as for food security, long term sustainability, land being a means of sustaining livelihoods and improvement of quality of life in rural areas.

In Sri Lanka there have always been policies (upto 1977), to help small farmers to remain on their land as their only means of living. It is still the area with the highest potential for providing livelihoods. But , this is now being rapidly changed, leading to very severe socio, economic and political repurcussions such as hunger and malnutrition, armed rebellion by youth who cannot find alternative livelihoods, increased poverty, and disparities and also very serious environmental destruction.

Marketing of water is another proposal which will make the situation much worse, by diverting the water resources to purely profit oriented uses by big businesses and depriving the poor of their water resources.

A very valuable system of ecological irrigation and agriculture that Sri Lanka had developed for many thousands of years has been destroyed in the process of converting land and water in to "private means of production." This destruction will now be much worse in the process of further orientation towards Globalisation and liberalisation of Market. Sri Lanka provides a tremendous, tragic example of this process which needs to be studied.

In this respect reseach , extention and awareness in relation to multifunctional land use should be promoted, particulrly to see how it should be done to enhance sustainable livelihoods for people. The prevention of the process of degradation in adopting extensive chemical farming methods, that has made small farmer agricultue almost non viable.

Recommendation 2: We support retribution to persons who supply green services, particularly those that sustain livelihoods of people who have land as the only means of survival and not those who do it merely for profit. There is tremendous potential for production of organic food and production of plants with medicinal value. But, we feel that it is very necessary to retain the possibility of rural small scale producers having control over these resources and not allow big businesses that may encroach in to these areas, claiming to be providing "green services". There are big private companies such as the Ceylon Tobacco Company, now claiming to be moving in to these areas of "Green Production".

FAO should encourage establishment of mechanismsfor green services by communities who depend on land for servival. e.g. The sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development(SARD) Programme of FAO.

Recom. 3 : Privatisation of agricultural marketing - in terms of discouraging interventions in marketing to protect the poor/small producers in rural areasand poorer local consumers should be prevented. This too is a strong trend pushed by the WB and Private business in Sri Lanka( in the above world Bank report govenment's interventions on those lines were t be stopped).

Thus, the whole WTO processes of liberalisation of markets for agricultural products should be re- examined in terms of its impact on particular situations where small scale / rural producers should be protected.

Liberalisation of market in Sri lanka has been very detrimental to the small producers. Regional trade agreements to open markets is done in Sri Lanka, not with the objective of providing larger opportunities to the local small scale producers, but as an attraction to big foreign investments to come into the country. E.G. SAPTA, SAFTA Agreements and the recent Indo- Sri Lanka Trade Agreement.

Subsidies and protection to small/poor farmers should be seriously considered, since what we have now is a serious reduction of subsidies and services to the weaker producers with very large subsidies to he richest investors in terms of infrastructure, cheap labour and other benefits.

Rec. 4 is supported: emphasis on expansion of rural production baseutilizing low cost, sustainable approaches. Enhancing the potentials of the poor to strenthen their contribution to Nature's economy nd household and community level subsistance economies.

Rec.5: Ensure availability of access to water for poorer rural producers and to the better management of nature's resources. The present proposals of setting up tradable water rights should be carefully studied.

Rec. 6. is supportd for the reasons given. A false argument given in Sri Lanka is that freer trade in land would make people freer to move into other sectors that are more beneficial and viable. This is not true sice extreme forms of poverty and indebtedness of the rural people would compell them to give up their land even when this is the last thing they would like to do, since it takes away their last means of economic security. Instead what is necessary is tio help these people to adopt more viable, more sustainable and cheaper methods of natural farming that they are capable of reviving.

II. Sustainable land use:

The first para is very meaningful in Sri Lanka's conditions and we have a long tradition and practice of using land in this manner sustainable by having a community based , integrated approach and not by further individualisation of land ownership and use. The potential that small farmers have in better and more sustainable management of land could be utilized effectively by promoting integrated systemic approaches. This is being reversed today, leading to a process of pushing them out completely. There is a tremendous lot theat can be learned in Sri Lanka by looking at the more ancient approaches to systemic management of land and the agro- ecosystems.

Rec. 7 and 8 are supported. Intellectual property rights and promotion of genetically manupulated seeds should be prevented, not only due to their dangers but also because it pushes out the poorer rural people from productive activity.This will happen throughout the world and would lead to a more complete domination and control in the hands of the TNCs over life and nature.

Rec.9 :We basically agree but this needs to be further studied, again from the point of view of the poor. There is a serious accusation against the poor people who are at present pushed out to cut forests and go into environmentally destructive processes as a result of this process of massive expulsion. Empahsis should be given therefore to policy changes and agricultural approaches that prevent such expulsion.

Rec11. We feel that WTO agreements and the processes are detrimental to the large numbers of the poor in our countrie and these were signe by our govermnments without any consultation with the people who are affected by them. So we oppose these. The large movements of the poor peoplesuch as the Peoples Global Action against WTO, Gatt etc. should be given serious consideration.

Rec.12 : This is a very important recommendation that we fully support.

We also support Rec. 13 strongly.

Stockholders' platforms for the negotiation of land use:

The concept "stckholders" should be given serious thought, since there is no "level playing field" in todays conditions. In a situation where there are very unequal participants in the process of decision making and bargaining we strongly feel there should be a clear choce about who should be prtected and given greater voice. The present situation of decision making, claiming to include "civil society" is really very undemocratic and tragic.

 Thank you very much for this opportunity given to us for participation. Wre are very willing to facilitate any further study in these areas of concern

Thanking you

Yours sincerely

 Sarath Fernando P.D. Gunatilleke Secretary ,
MONLAR Coordinator Devasarana Development Centre