In Sri Lanka over 60 percent of the total population are involved in farming and 38 percent of the total workforce are farm labours, steadily declining the agriculture contribution to GDP. Horticulture plays an important role in providing livelihood to a larger portion of poor people, increases the level of national income and export revenue, generates new employment opportunities, increases farm income, and indirectly enhances the nutrition and health of the nation. There is a need to increase the healthy fruits and vegetable production by several folds with the gradual increase in population, increase in per capita income, and expansion of exports and tourism industry of the country. Today’s agriculture produces enough food for the global population, but it has not given everyone everywhere access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Scaling-up of agroecological approaches can contribute to ensuring sustainable and resilient agricultural and food systems today and in future: assuring food security, environmental preservation, resilience to climate change, women’s empowerment, and increased peasants’ control over agrifood systems.

The tremendous contribution of small-scale agriculture and agroecological-based production systems to food security has been realized in the midst of scenarios of climate change, economic and energy crises in the last decade. Reports based on broad consultations with scientists and extensive researches evidenced that small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions like Asia and Africa by using agroecological methods already available.

In the world of organic production, Sri Lanka’s contribution is 2.5%. But in the last ten years, the growth of Sri Lankan organic agriculture extension increased by 216.4 %. Currently, 0.6 % of fruits and 0.2% of vegetables are produced organically.