Recently in Sri Lanka researchers have observed a stagnating or declining trend in productivity of major food grains grown under irrigation.Forrice, the major crop under irrigation in most Asian countries, studies indicated that the technological yield frontier has stagnated and shows signs of long-term decline. Moreover, incremental costs could be further aggravated because the percentage of farmers engaged in rice cultivation on small landholdings is very high and they have limited opportunities in off-farm income sources. The main objective of this study was to examine and assess the potential for expanding the cultivation of other field crops (OFCs) on rice lands, based on data available over a decade (1982-92) in respect of extents cultivated as well as changes that have taken place on different categories of irrigated lands in the country. The study highlights the great weaknesses of the database on diversified cropping, including basic information such as extents and crop yields. Establishment and maintenance of an accurate spatial database using a Geographic Information System (GIS) is therefore given a high priority in this study.