Food producers in the soup

Tuesday 10th November 2020

Hundreds of traders who brought truckloads of vegetables to Colombo yesterday morning found themselves up the creek; the Manning market remained closed although the quarantine curfew in the Western Province had been lifted. They had been informed that the place would reopen on Monday. The protesting traders were directed to the Narahenpita Economic Centre. That was no solution.

The reason given for keeping the Manning market closed is valid; some porters working there have contracted COVID-19. But the traders who came from faraway places could have been informed that the place would not reopen.

Fish continue to be caught, but cannot be sold. Wet markets are closed and people are wary of consuming fish due to the Peliyagoda COVID-19 cluster. We hear irate fishers’ tales of woe, daily, on television, but nobody seems to be doing anything to solve their problems. Boatloads of fish are going to waste, and fishers starving. How does the Fisheries Ministry propose to solve this problem?

Food producers are in this predicament due to the absence of a national strategy to protect them. The current pandemic has only aggravated their problems.

Successive governments have sought to increase the national food production and launched ambitious cultivation drives. The present dispensation has also embarked on one. One way to achieve this end is to curtail the post-harvest losses. Vegetable growers often dump their produce on the roadside, in areas such as Dambulla, unable to dispose of it although vegetables are in short supply elsewhere. They should be provided with storage and transport facilities so that they do not have to discard their produce. There have been promises to set up storage facilities in the main vegetable producing areas, but they remain unfulfilled.

Turmeric imports have been banned to help local farmers, we are told. But, curiously, the import duty on big onions was removed recently while onions were being harvested here. The country was flooded with imported onions overnight. Local farmers have been badly hit. Is it that the government’s protectionist policies are aimed at helping only the turmeric farmers? Was the sudden duty waiver at issue intended to help someone who had brought in a shipload of onions?

Rice prices have gone up again, and the government has introduced maximum retail prices for some varieties of rice. These price increases cannot be due to the prevailing pandemic. Big-time millers manipulate the rice market. We have discussed, quoting researchers, in a previous comment, how the powerful millers’ Mafia controls the rice market. It creates shortages of rice ahead of the harvesting seasons, compelling governments to import rice, causing prices to fall. Thereafter, the wealthy millers purchase paddy at very low prices. Most of the stocks of imported rice remain in the Sathosa warehouses due to their poor quality and are sold as animal feed in the end. The millers hoard the paddy and the rice prices increase. They also ensure that loans that their small-time counterparts apply for to purchase paddy are delayed so that they are without any competition. This is the name of the game, but governments do not care.

Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Altuhgamage has unveiled a plan to re-cultivate the abandoned paddy fields in the Kandy District, according to a news item in yesterday’s issue of this newspaper. This is a laudable move, but what has caused many farmers to give up paddy cultivation should be found out. Paddy fields are abandoned mainly due to a chronic shortage of labour and increasing cost of production. Can the Minister ensure that there will be a reasonable price for the paddy from fields to be cultivated again?

Given the hardships farmers face owing to lack of state assistance, increasing cost of production, their inability to dispose of their produce, and exploitation at the hands of big businesses and creditors, it is perhaps a miracle that paddy and vegetables continue to be grown in this country.