President’s Inheritance Deed Grant: a deception to the farmers

“At a time when farming has come to a very difficult period and farmers are facing a threat to their lives, when farmers are preparing to mortgage and lease their land to survive, the government’s program of giving the freehold provision of farmland rights to the farmers, under the government’s ‘plan of selling all the resources of the country’ is an effort of grabbing the lands of the farmers” sated by the Movement of Land and Agriculture Reforms (MONLAR).

During a period when the prices of all inputs including fertilizers, seeds, and machinery have gone up and farming is very difficult, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has started ensnaring poor farmers by giving them full ownership of farmlands and behind that trap are the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and there are a large number of businessmen and investors, the Movement of Land and Agriculture Reforms said at the press briefing.

Sri Lanka’s old land policies and land markets were created in an inefficient and underdeveloped status. Therefore, reforms should be introduced to create an active land market, quoting the document ‘Sri Lanka Will be a Rich Country in 2025’ presented by Ranil Wickramasinghe during the period of Good Governance Government of 2018, Chinthaka Rajapaksa, the Moderator of MONLAR, pointed out.

Moreover, Chinthaka Rajapaksa, who mentioned that the background of land acquisition in this country was, clearly mentioned in the “Land Bank Act” that was presented at that time, said that at that time only ‘as licenses and as gifts’ were given for those lands, so there was no regularity to acquire those lands as required by the government.

“However, according to the decision taken by President Ranil Wickremesinghe on February 5th, not only the transfer of land but also the freehold right is given. But that right is not to develop farming, nor to develop agriculture with the farmer as the primary focus,” said the Moderator,  Chinthaka.

The MONLAR Moderator said that the current land commissioner has also stated specifically that under the Urumaya program, this freehold deed is not given for farming, but only for commercial cultivation.

” She also said that they hope to create commercial cultivation aimed at export”, Chinthaka added.

He stated that commercial agriculture is not the normal farming that an average farmer does on half an acre, one acre, two or three acres, but the cultivation of maize, banana cultivation on thousands of acres, as well as solar panels, stone quarries, etc. are huge investments.

What a normal farmer needs is the necessary rights and background to protect his land and build his livelihood and future. However, the hope of the farmer will not be fulfilled by the President’s Urumaya (legacy) program.

Therefore, we say to the farmers of this country, that this government is trying to deceive you once again. In this effort, you the farmer are not going to get an inheritance but a Karma! (Pain/bad results). The President made a start for that at Dambulle on the 5th.

In this heritage, a freehold right for land has been given to the land, and it has created a situation where any investor, family friend, bank, or financier can get it for a small amount in the free market. It was pointed out that the real benefit of giving the freehold deed is not to the farmer but to the bank.

Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe distributed an initial 10,000 freehold titles to land to farmers as part of the first phase of the Urumaya program on the 05th of February.

“I urge everyone to cherish and safeguard this right, not just for themselves but for future generations,” Wickremesinghe said during the ceremony at the Rangiri Dambulu Stadium.

The ‘Urumaya’ program will be rolled out nationwide benefiting an estimated 2 million farming families. The 2024 budget allocated 2 billion rupees for the program’s implementation. Applicants seeking full ownership of land will receive freehold titles in three main stages.

But, MONLAR’s researcher and an Environmentalist, Sajeeva Chamikara also commented to the media and said that a process under two existing laws related to land in the country, instead of taking a new law and passing it through the parliament and implementing it, a process of legalizing the legal status of two laws is wrongly being implemented through a circular. A complete violation of the rules. An illegal act. In this illegal situation, the absolute right of the deeds given to the farmers will not be obtained in any way, he said.

He said that once again misleading farmers and this heritage program – Urumaya has quickly started with the aim of gaining political advantages, in forthcoming elections.

” Instead of protecting agriculture by providing clear land titles with absolute rights and providing all facilities including water for farming, they have taken steps to gradually remove the farmers from agriculture,” he said.

Also, Sajeeva Chamikara pointed out that, based on the way of giving these deeds, when the farmer gradually withdraws from agriculture, water will be saved on a large scale and the process of selling water along with the excess water will be easier and it will be easier for large-scale companies to give land with water.

END.