Overview of DEA

The public interest to promote perennial spices and beverages has no more than 40 years history though the country had world wide fame for growing and trading of those commodities for centuries. Among Export Agriculture Crops, the first national effort was taken to develop coffee in 1959 through the first National Development Plan prepared by the Ministry of National Planning. The development of uneconomic tea lands was a hot issue by that time and the agriculture plan prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture proposed a subsidy scheme for planting coffee in the uneconomic tea small holdings. The effort was considered as successful and by 1963 Department of National Planning took up the issue of development of perennial spices and cocoa which they referred as the Minor Export Crops. However development of these crops in terms of perennial action were brought in to the mainstream of National Agricultural Planning only in 1971.

The deliberations of Tea Commission, appointed in 1968, were published in as the sessional paper No. XVIII of 1968 and the commission recommended cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg as possible alternate crops for cultivation in uneconomic tea lands. The in-depth study of the tea commission indicated the availability of large extents of uneconomic tea land in the mid country and stressed the need for diversification of tea in to other suitable crops. Following that report, the FAO/UNDP assisted crop diversification project was started in the mid country in April 1970. Soon after the commencement of the crop diversification project the Department of Minor Export Crops was established under the Ministry of plantation Industries by a cabinet paper in 1972. Main objectives of the department were to increase export earnings from minor export crops and to increase the economic viability of traditional tea rubber and coconut lands through diversification and inter planting. The cocoa development and rehabilitation program, handled by the coconut and cocoa rehabilitation department, was soon transferred to the newly created department. Procedures for implementation of research and development policies were developed from the studies of the crop diversification project.