Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON Vol. 1, No. 4, July 1997 - Articles

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Canada Day Dedication Ceremony with the Sri-Lankan High Commissioner

Ottawa - On July 1st, 1997, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner for Canada, Mr. Ananda C. Goonasekera, will be inaugurating the "Sri Lankan Field Demonstration on Sustainable Agricultural Technology and Urban Gardening" in a Canada Day dedication ceremony at the Agriculture Museum.

As a local commitment to the World Food Summit’s "Food For All" campaign, this initiative demonstrates the potential benefits to Canadians of adopting farming practices employed in other countries. It shows how traditional Sri Lankan gardening techniques are able to derive a variety of crops from the land, but in a manner that is more sustainable to the environment and to the community.

Rather than using pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the Sri Lankan method promotes the use of plant extracts for pest and insect control, and organic manure to provide nutrition to the plants.

Neem Oil and Marigolds are employed for their insect repellant qualities, while artificial pheromones attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs and wasps which will destroy some of the bugs harmful to the crops.

Water traps, yellow in colour, attract other insects— small quantities of detergent are added to the traps, thereby reducing the water’s surface tension, so that when the insects land on the surface, they drown. Other insects are lured by brightly coloured sticky traps and light traps.

The first stage of preparing the land involves solar sterilization—an alternative to using environmentally-harmful methyl bromide. First the soil is watered thoroughly and covered with a clear plastic sheet. Sunlight permeates the sheet and destroys fungi and bacteria which can cause root disease in the crops. The plot is then covered, before seeding, with organic manure—a highly rich source of plant nutrition. Weeds and other noxious plants are controlled by applying straw mulch to the surface of the land. As well as protecting the crops from invasive plants, the straw keeps the soil moist and, in the long run, provides the bed with further precious nutrients.

Come harvest time, the plot will yield eggplants, tomatoes, hot peppers, radishes, spinach, beans, kangkung (traditional Sri Lankan vegetable) and okra.

The Sri-Lankan Garden is an initiative of the United Nations Association in Canada (UNA-Canada) and Mr. Priyantha Wijeweera, who acts as a Food Security Specialist for UNA-Canada’s Global Network on Food Security. The Agriculture Museum provided a plot of land for the project, with IDRC funding the initiative.