The Cabinet has approved the signing of a technical cooperation agreement with Brazil aimed at expanding the capacity of Sri Lanka’s dairy industry.
The approval covers a proposal submitted by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, and also covers the complementary adjustment agreement between the two governments that is a prerequisite for the project going ahead, Hiru News reported.
Who signs
Three parties are to sign: Brazil’s Cooperation Agency, which sits under the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Federal University of Viçosa; and the Government of Sri Lanka. Preliminary arrangements are still being completed.
The route to this point
The agreement runs under the basic agreement on technical cooperation the two countries signed on 16 September 2008. That framework requires individual programmes to be implemented through separate complementary agreements rather than as standalone treaties — which is why a Cabinet decision is needed for each project.
A high-level delegation of Brazilian experts toured Sri Lanka in 2023 to assess both the dairy and sugarcane sectors. Those field observations, together with a concept paper submitted by the National Science Foundation to the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, produced the logical framework the two sides have now agreed to draft into an agreement.
The sugarcane parallel
This is the second project to come out of that same 2023 visit and the same 2008 framework. The Cabinet approved a sugarcane complementary adjustment agreement on 1 September, pairing Brazil’s cooperation agency with São Carlos Federal University and Sri Lanka’s Sugarcane Research Institute.
The dairy project uses a different Brazilian university — Viçosa, which has a long-established animal science and dairy programme — and a different Sri Lankan sponsoring ministry.
No budget figure, timeline, signing date or project scope was given for the dairy agreement, and the report does not say what form the technical assistance will take.