Let us grow crops to feed people

By Dr Lal Jayasinghe

laljayasinghe@hotmail.com

It is not easy for an individual, unless he or she has a special interest, to know what types of food crops, and extents of each, we grow in the country. This is especially true for people living in Colombo. However, lately there has been an increased interest in one crop over others, namely maize or corn. There are two reasons for this. One, because of the attack of the Fall Armyworm or Sena Dalambuwa, and two, because large tracks of land are being given away to grow corn.

It would be interesting to look at the extent of land in Sri Lanka given to all non-rice cereals including maize. Most people associate maize only with the production of Thriposha. This is because in Sri Lanka corn is not a cereal that is consumed to any degree, unlike in some countries of the world. I shall show below what percentage of corn grown in the country is actually used for producing Thriposha, which statistic would surprise many.

The Sri Lankan diet is mainly vegetarian and consists of rice, pulses, fruit and vegetables. The pulses traditionally consumed by Sri Lankans are dhal, green gram, chick pea, cow pea. Soya is also used as (mostly imported) soya protein. Kurakkan and gingelly or sesame are two other cereals consumed to a significant extent. It would therefore be interesting to find out what extents of land are utilised for each cereal crop (other than rice) and the annual production of each. (See figure 1, 2, 3, 4)

It is seen that the average extent of land given over to maize during the period 2010 to 2018 is 53,896 hectares, while the land growing all other six cereals during the same period is 29,724. In other words 1.8 times i.e. nearly twice the land is given over to grow maize which is not eaten by people to any significant extent, when compared to all other non-rice cereals combined, although the latter ones are the ones people eat.

Similarly during the same years, 217,373 metric tons of maize were produced, while only 67,810 metric tons of the other cereals combined were produced. In other words three times as much of maize were grown as kurakkan; green gram, cow pea, soya bean, black gram and gingelly combined. (See figure 5, 6)

Why do we grow maize at the expense of other cereals?

It is obvious that a very large quantity of maize is being grown in Sri Lanka. In fact, an average of 213,604 metric tons of it was produced between 2010 and 2018. Where did it all go? We do not manufacture corn oil, nor do we produce corn flakes. The visible evidence of use of corn is only as boiled corn cobs on the wayside. This is also not very successful because we grow field corn and not sweet corn. I am reliably informed by a knowledgeable monk from Mahiyangana that in the past, people used to grow sweet corn in the hena, which they used as a vegetable. This practice has disappeared with the introduction of high yielding field corn, probably because the newly introduced variety being field corn is not suitable for use as a vegetable.

As will be seen form the table and chart, the bulk of the production goes to make animal feed. Only 3% was used to produce Thriposha. In addition 28% is not accountable.(We can only speculate what happened to nearly a third (28%) of the production, which I shall touch on later.)

People will of course argue that use as animal food is quite rational and there is nothing wrong in devoting twice as much land for growing animal feed when compared to growing cereals for human consumption. This is mostly because of the mistaken belief that animal protein is somehow superior to vegetable protein.

Quite apart from the mistaken belief that we cannot do without animal protein, there are health and environmental costs incurred in the strategy of growing food to feed animals and then feeding animals to people. In order to keep this article to a reasonable length I shall only briefly mention the health and environmental damage caused by meat production and consumption.

First, zoonoses or diseases acquired from animals; take chickens for a start, almost all chicken are bearers of several bacteria that cause gastrointestinal and other diseases namely; salmonella, campylobacter and e-coli. Chicken can also be the source of bird-flu. If we take cattle, they are the source of a large number of possible diseases. The common ones are again salmonellosis, cryptosporidiosis, e-coli infections and giardiasis. The less common are bovine TB, listeriosis, leptospirosis and even anthrax.

In addition to directly being the source of disease causing organisms, rearing animals for food causes another serious health problem because of the use of antibiotics. In order to successfully raise animals for food, they need to be fed growth factors and antibiotics. These substances may remain in the meat that is eventually consumed by people. In addition, the use of antibiotics is particularly dangerous because the practice results in multiplication and spread of bacteria which are resistant to the antibiotics used, which happen to be the same ones used to treat infections in people. As more and more animals are raised and more and more antibiotics are used, the bacteria which are not only living in these animals but in the environment too, will become resistant to the common antibiotics. People are infected by bacteria from the environment and find that the antibiotics prescribed are not effective.

A third health problem is the pollution to water caused by disposal of the waste from animal farms.

These direct ill-health effects of animal farming, are overshadowed by ill-health caused indirectly by the damage to the wider environment by global warming.

“Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth” This is the headline of an article in the Guardian newspaper of 31st May 2018, reporting on a study in the journal Science: Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers J. Poore and T. Nemecek Science 360 (6392), 987-992.

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.”(See figure 7)

Redrawn from: J. Poore and T. Nemecek Science 360 (6392), 987-992

Another statistic reported in the same article gives the following figures for production of greenhouse gases (GHG) in producing 100 gms. of protein:

Beef 305 Kg

Cheese 18 kg

Chicken 12 Kg

Pulses 1.8 Kg

These figures collected from the above quoted article were compiled by collecting data from a large number of countries who used chemical fertilizer to varying degrees. If the pulses were to be grown in Sri Lanka entirely organically; the amount of GHG produced would be much less than 1.8 Kg or even carbon negative if we reused the crop waste to improve the soil.

In Sri Lanka as maize is used as a cash crop rather than a food crop, and the motive is profit, and safety takes a second place to yield, there is no compulsion to avoid or reduce the use of chemical fertilizer or pesticides. Specially pesticides, in view of the Slow Armyworm invasion.

Unfortunately some of this maize i.e. 3% is used to make Thriposha which is given to infants and pregnant women. It is theoretically possible that some of the pesticide is present in the maize used. (do we test the maize for toxins before incorporating it into Thriposha?). It would be preferable if it could be ensured that the maize used in the Thriposha is organically grown.

Economics

Let us now deal with the economic case for growing our own food. As stated earlier, in Sri Lanka there are five cereals other than rice that are consumed to a significant extent, namely dhal, green gram, chick pea, cow pea and soya. Out of these dhal or red lentil mainly is by far the most used. There is no valid or special nutritional reason that I know of why this should be the case. It is only custom and no one has tried to change it. In addition dhal does not grow in Sri Lanka (more than likely we have not tried hard enough or selected suitable varieties) But, if one looks at the economics, it is obvious we are wasting valuable foreign exchange when we have a number of alternative pulses such as green gram cowpea etc which grow perfectly well in Sri Lanka.

The unaccounted maize

As was stated earlier 28% of the maize cannot be accounted for. The uses of maize are limited. It is used directly as a food cereal; for animal feed, to make corn oil, to make corn flakes, and in small quantities for corn flour, popcorn and as a vegetable or snack.

Similar to other cereals like wheat and barley maize too can be used to make alcohol. We do not have information whether maize is used in Sri Lanka to make alcohol, but between 2013 and 2018 a huge quantity of alcohol was produced in Sri Lanka as shown below:

Source: Dept. of Excise Annual report 2018

For a small country like Sri Lanka with a population of only 22 Million or so, a huge amount of alcohol is produced. In 2018 it amounted to 36.5 Million litres of absolute alcohol. This is only the legally manufactured alcohol. We do not know how much alcohol is distilled illegally in Sri Lanka.

As everyone knows alcohol is produced by fermenting starch followed by distillation. In most countries wheat, barley, rye and grapes are used to legally manufacture alcoholic spirits. Maize as well as rice too could be used as the base cereal. It is generally stated that 1 ton of cereal is required to make 400 litres of alcohol. If that were true, to make 36.5 M litres it would require, 89000 tons of cereal. In 2018, the quantity of maize unaccounted for was 104,490 tons. As I said it is only speculation but some or most of it possibly went to make alcohol.

The traditional Sri Lankan diet comprised, in addition to rice several pulses such as green gram, black gram etc and also other cereals like kurakkan or millet. This diet comprising a variety of cereals and pulses together with fruit and vegetables, (which grow throughout the year in home gardens and is readily available), is nutritionally rich and adequate. But, this traditional diet has been gradually altered by growing an alien crop, namely maize which is grown only to feed animals and very possibly to manufacture liquor. To replace the traditionally used pulses, which grow in Sri Lanka, another pulse namely dhal, which does not grow in Sri Lanka, is imported at immense cost in foreign exchange. Is this rational? How did this happen? Who benefits? Should we continue or is it time to once again grow food to feed people?