Sri Lanka is an agriculture based country, with a well-distributed rainfall throughout the year. Many agriculturally important crops are grown in Sri Lanka but the three main
crops are tea, rubber and coconut.
Agricultural research, including plant breeding is handled by the public sector research organizations and is dominated by eight centres. No university, private sector organization or NGO is involved in plant breeding. Currently, the major agriculture research organizations come under five different ministries and the institutes are generally organized by crop. This dispersal of mandates poses a serious challenge to general coordination of research activities.
Genetic improvement has been the back-bone of the increase in crop yields and production in Sri Lanka. Varietal improvement programmes are carried out in many crops, namely rice, other field crops (maize, millets, oilseeds, other grain legumes), root and tuber crops, vegetables and fruits, sugarcane, tea, rubber, coconut and export agriculture crops (cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper and coffee). Environmental breeding priorities are biotic and abiotic stresses.
The prioritization of the limiting factors for the success of the plant breeding programmes varied among organizations depending on the crop. However, the limited human resource capacity poses severe constraints in satisfying each organization’s mandates. All of them also expect from the international community to facilitate germplasm exchange.
Research and education institutes with activities in plant breeding
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The Department of Export Agriculture (DEA) is under the purview of the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Agrarian services. It is responsible research and development aiming at productivity, production and quality improvements of a group of perennial, Export Agricultural Crops (EAC) namely Cinnamon, Pepper, Cardamom, Clove, Nutmeg, Coffee, Cocoa, Vanilla, Betel, Citronella, Lemon grass, Arecanut, all traditionally grown in Sri Lanka.
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RRI is a public sector institute mandated only with rubber. Involved in rubber breeding over last 90 years and plant biotechnology over last 14 years, it is the oldest rubber institute in the world. Its main objective is to enhance the productivity of the crops to match the increasing demand. 90% of RRI’s work is distributed equally between line development and evaluation.
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RRDI comes under the purview of the Department of Agriculture in the public sector in Sri Lanka and is mandated with research and development of only rice, since rice is the staple food in the country. Rice breeding is the major component of rice research at RRDI. This work was systematically initiated in 1952. Most of the germplasm (75%) for rice breeding comes from local and national germplasm banks and most of the rest is from introductions through participation in germplasm evaluation networks.
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CRI is a public sector institute mandated only with coconut. It has been involved in coconut breeding for over 75 years and in plant biotechnology since 2004. It is the world’s first Research Institute devoted to coconut. Its mission is to generate knowledge and technology through excellence in research towards increasing productivity and profitability of coconut.
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FCRDI is coming under the purview of the Department of Agriculture (DOA) of the public sector in Sri Lanka and is mandated with research and development of field crops except rice for which there is a separate institution. The crops and crops groups handled by the FCRDI are chilli, onion, maize, sorghum & millet, oil seeds (soybean, groundnut, sesame, sunflower), grain legumes (cowpea, green gram, black gram, pigeon pea) and some vegetables and fruits.
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HORDI falls under the purview of the Department of Agriculture. This institute has a mandate for the research and development of root & tuber crops and vegetables & fruit crops. Plant breeding is one of the major research areas in this institute, which has been involved in improvement of horticultural crops over the past 35 years and in plant biotechnology, particularly in tissue culture, over the past 25 years.
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Sugar Cane Research Institute (SRI)
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SRI is a public sector institution which has been involved in sugarcane breeding for more than 21 years and plant biotechnology over 15 years. The institute works only on sugarcane. Resources allocation has been made only for germplasm enhancement and line evaluation. Line development is not part of the work of this institute.
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Tea Research Institute (TRI)
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TRI is a public sector organization mandated only with tea and involved in tea breeding over last 45 years and plant biotechnology since 2004. Genetic variability in tea is low, so the major portion of the resources allocation is for germplasm enhancement. The only source of germplasm is the national germplasm bank which is also the local germplasm bank maintained by TRI.
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Information by Sumith de Z Abeysiriwardena (2004). - Information based on the Sri Lanka's full report from the PBBC survey. Last revised 21-06-2010, GIPB.
