Cattle Farmers’ Federation requests release of PC report

Affected farmers to take further action and expose the culprits behind this massive racket

The Cattle Farmers’ Federation has sent a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on February 14 requesting to take necessary steps to release the Presidential Commission report which conducted a case on the tragic consequences that dairy farmers experienced after purchasing exotic cattle from overseas, which had been imported by the Ministry of Rural Development of former ‘Yahapalana’ government.

In the letter, the Cattle Farmers’ Federation requested the Presidential

Commission of Inquiry (PCOI) to investigate into the corruption that happened between 2015 and 2018.

“During the period of the Commission, the Commissioners had provided their recommendations in the report and dairy farmers who were involved in this project wanted to take further action and expose the real culprits behind this massive corruption,” Vice President of the Cattle Farmers’ Federation Amal Suriyage said.

He said they had mentioned about the extreme financial hardships currently faced by Dairy Farmers as a result of purchasing cows from the project conducted by the former Minister of Rural Development.

“By mentioning it as a new project, former Rural Development Minister P. Harison, former Secretary of the Ministry and the Project Director had imported 20,000 substandard and unproductive cattle from an Australian company named Wellard and we mentioned this in the letter,” he said.

He said that 64 various investors purchased 5000 pregnant heifers at a cost of Rs. 200,000 each under this scheme and out of them nearly 20 farmers have already closed their farms, with huge investments on infrastructure totally wasted due to unproductive cows with a massive mortality rate.

“Imported cattle started to perish due to diseases not known to Sri Lanka like Mycoplasma and BVD. Out of 64 farms only 40 farms are still functioning, but with a huge financial losses due to death of cows, low milk yields, death of calves, and pregnancy delay of infertile cattle. About 7 farms in operation are in the recovery list of banks due to non-payment of loans,” Mr. Suriyage said.