Features

Seeing the market through the spectre

Published

5 years ago

2021/09/21

By Panduka Karunanayake

Leftist ideologues like to create an image of ‘the market’ as a terrible place, like how grown-ups frighten children with their ghost stories. The market is portrayed as a ruthless, heartless machine that thrives on unfairness and corruption, crushing the poor and fattening the rich. It must have become easier to create this image after the Soviet bloc fell in the 1990s and China emerged out of communism soon afterwards, because after that people quickly forgot that socialist and communist economies too have markets – even markets every bit as ruthless, heartless, unfair and corrupt as any capitalist market. Today, these ideologues can write as if the market and capitalism are synonyms. Everything ‘un-socialist’ can be easily ‘explained away’ by saying that it ‘promotes marketisation’.

No amount of argument or explanation would change these ideologues’ minds – after all, an ideologue is a person who pursues an ideology in an inflexible manner. But let me set out some related matters, for the benefit of the rest of us.

Emergence and evolution of the market

Markets have probably existed throughout human existence, because human beings are social animals that thrive on social interaction. There is an illuminating passage in Charles Darwin’s book The Voyage of the Beagle, where he described an encounter with the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego in South America, who were ‘primitive’ hunter-gatherers and nomads with no previous encounter with civilisation:

“Some of the Feugians plainly showed that they had a fair notion of barter. I gave one man a large nail (a most valuable present) without making any signs for a return; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them up on the point of his spear. If any present was designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it was invariably given to the right owner.”

This passage shows that they were well-versed in the moral principles – such as free choice, trust, fairness and reciprocity – associated with exchange of goods and services that form the basis of the functioning market.

The market became prominent after the emergence of agriculture about 10,000 year ago. Agriculture enabled farmers to produce a food surplus, which then enabled the rest of the villagers to work on other crafts – promoting division of labour and specialisation. This created an overall increase in the quality of the villagers’ lives, because they now had a wider variety of produce to consume. Villagers now depended on each other more, for the produce they wished to consume. As the village increased in size and complexity, a place where producers and consumers could meet, to exchange goods and services, became a necessity. In the physical realm this was the marketplace, and in the conceptual realm it was the market. Initially, exchange occurred through the barter system without a medium of exchange, but the invention of money made it easier.

But until industrialisation, this market was small and sluggish. It produced very little, compared to today. Most of what a village produced was consumed within it, and only a tiny proportion of it left the village, to be consumed by outsiders – the market was still not much more than the marketplace.

Reason for smallness

The reason for this smallness was not entirely because there were no industrial factories. The villagers could have produced more if they wanted to, but they didn’t, because they saw that any extra produce created problems. There were difficulties with storing it, protecting it, preserving it or transporting it elswhere, and in any event the lords could easily expropriate it under the feudalistic modes of production. Items that were considered luxury items were an exception; they were carried to distant destinations by camel, caravan or boat.

But starting in the eighteenth century, industrialisation changed all that. Factories produced large quantities of produce (or ‘commodities’) cheaply, and the market expanded to distribute a much larger variety and quantity of goods much more widely. Specialisation became the norm and a necessity. The crucial factor that made all this possible was probably the improvement in transport. Look at your lunch plate today, and try to figure out from where and how far each of the food items on it – not to mention the plate itself or the energy for the fire that cooked your lunch – have come from.

Today, production and consumption are almost totally separated from each other (with a few exceptions, like farmers who sell their produce by the roadside in front of their homes, and ‘factory outlets’). It is the market that enables this to happen. The market, which is no longer simply the marketplace, gives us access to a bewildering variety of goods and services, thereby enabling us – even the poorest amongst us – to enjoy a greater choice and higher quality of life, compared to pre-industrial times. The healthcare and education that even the poorest amongst us enjoy would not reach them if not for the market.

As an example, let us take soap. Until industrialisation this was a luxury item that only the elite enjoyed. In Roman times, even the elite cleaned themselves mostly by simply immersing themselves in their baths and rubbing off dirt; indeed, using soap would have made the bath too disgusting to get into. Soap was available only to those in the very highest echelons of society. The masses were ‘dirty’ and their skin was infested with scabies, pediculosis and lice, and they commonly suffered diseases like impetigo and erysipelas – they lacked even the water necessary to wash themselves (especially hot water in cold climates). But today, soap is so ubiquitous that we take it for granted – it was industrialisation that enabled its cheap mass production and the market that enabled its wide distribution.

Value of simple things

The real value of something as simple as soap was driven home powerfully to me in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, when people had lost everything and were accommodated in make-shift camps. What did they ask for, from the donors and volunteers who went to help them? First, they asked for food, water and certain medicines. A few days later, they began asking for soap, a change of clothing and sanitary pads: after three or four days, they were itching and suffering with fungal skin infections. That was an unfortunate re-enactment and reminder of the pre-industrial life of the masses. I remembered how a textbook of public health that I had read a few decades earlier had cleverly classified infectious diseases according to whether they were prevented by soap and water, clean drinking water, safe food, and so on. The post-tsunami experience showed me the sagacity of that – and the value of the ubiquitous soap, industrialisation and the market.

In his book The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler compared a modern-day market to an efficient telephone exchange or switchboard. A switchboard connects thousands of senders and recipients accurately and enables messages to be sent across to their intended destinations – like producers, consumers, and goods and services in the market. Like telephone messages, goods and services are produced, sent across and consumed according to need and availability: demand and supply.

Such a market cannot exist on its own. It needs inputs from important sectors in society, such as law and order (which upholds the right to private property, prevents or punishes theft, and arbitrates when there are contractual disagreements), education (which creates an educated and trained workforce, not only for manufacture but also for distribution), communication, energy, transport, ports, etc. Such external supports have existed not only in capitalist markets but also in pre-capitalist and socialist markets. These supports are provided because everybody realises that markets are useful to everyone, especially when the population expands and the demand for commodities increases.

So, to say that something should be abhorred because it promotes ‘marketisation’ is disingenuous.

Organising the market

Markets can be organised in various ways. It helps to think of these as lying on a spectrum ranging from capitalism to communism, which are the extreme forms at the two ends. In-between, there are lots of compromises, combinations or ‘middle ways’. For instance, the current Chineses model is sometimes called state capitalism – a good example of a middle way.

But the natural form of the market that emerged spontaneously was the free market: a market where no authority-imposed restrictions or controls, nor introduced any encouragements or inducements. The activities in the free market merely recognised the concepts of private property and voluntary exchange, and operated on demand and supply. That was all.

Opponents

Throughout this time, the free market has had many opponents who have tried to impose limits or controls to it. Division of labour and specialisation were resisted – by the cultural elite who tried to maintain the status quo in society, such as the caste system in ancient society and feudal-peasant relations in medieval times. During industrialisation when factories came up, that was resisted too – by guildsmen who felt that their business was threatened, and those like the Luddites who felt threatened by the new manufacturing technology. Karl Marx proposed that private property, including ‘the means of production’, should be taken over by the state and brought under its control.

Some of the concepts that they used against the growth of the free market were traditional values such as loyalty and caste-based duties (especially upheld by the cultural elite), simplicity in life and charity as well as opposition to ‘ursury’ and banks (especially the clergy), and equality. It is only now, after centuries of change, that words like ‘industry’ (which initially meant industriousness), ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘individualism’ have emerged as ‘good words’, to create an environment conducive to a free market. Charles Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit nicely captured the mood of the era when industrialisation was struggling to emerge through the feudal society, by portraying the struggle of a typical ‘upstart’ who had to go to America to make a fresh start.

According to Stephen Fry, even today, the typical British comedy mostly parodies the upstart’s ineptness (“celebrate failure”), whereas the typical American comedy glorifies the industrious entrepreneur or smart-aleck (“life is improvable”). When we read comments about the market, we must take care to ‘read’ this subtext too.

Inequality

Ironically, inequality had previously been tolerated and even celebrated, as long as the only inequality was between the elite and the masses – the masses were ‘equal’ in their poverty and the elite were rich by birthright. But after industrialisation, the moment the masses gradually became enriched and a middle class emerged, inequality became a big social issue. When a part of the masses remained poor and another part became better-off, socialism was born. Different segments of the masses quickly became each other’s enemies – thanks to socialism. It was an example of applying the brakes even before the vehicle had started to move in earnest. They were ennobled by socialism’s new words, like ‘fraternity’ and ‘equality’ – which basically meant, ‘Those who are not poor like you are not one of you, and have no right to be rich if you too cannot be rich’.

But while the leaders of socialism may have harboured such beliefs, their proletariat comrades had simpler minds. In his book The Road to Wigan Pier written after World War One, George Orwell, himself a socialist, reflecting on the tensions and contradictions in English society as it grappled with this new-found inequality and ‘class struggle’, wrote:

“To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about….[No] genuine working man grasps the deeper implications of Socialism. Often, in my opinion, he is a truer Socialist than the orthodox Marxist, because he does remember what the other so often forgets, that Socialism means justice and common decency….His vision of the Socialist future is a vision of present society with the worst abuses left out, and with interest centring round the same things as at present – family life, the pub, football, and local politics.”

Orwell’s main message was that any effort to ‘improve’ society, by whatever name, that had lost touch with the common man was bound to deteriorate into a fascism. The remainder of the twentieth century proved him right.

Today, Orwell’s England has come through quite nicely in spite of the disintegration of the British Empire soon afterwards, and shows none of the class struggle and poverty Orwell’s and Dickens’ books have recorded. So, should we champion an equality of the poor, or should we patiently work towards a gradually enriching society with a tolerable level of inequality?

Necessary controls

At the same time, it is also advisable to control some forms of exchange in the market. For instance, if a country considers that it is necessary to ensure food security through its own, local cultivation of important crops, it is wise to put in place some safeguards to protect local agriculture from the adverse effects of competition from imported foods, at least for important foods. Even advanced capitalist countries like USA and Japan do this (for wheat and rice, respectively).

Similarly, it would be prudent to protect certain crucial markets, such as the energy sector and ports. It is also important to ensure distribution of crucial goods & services (such as healthcare, basic education, basic housing, basic clothing, basic transport) for all members of society, with a view to protecting the poor who have limited purchasing power. This requires the institution of safety nets and price control. In this age of climate change, resource depletion and environmental degradation, nobody would argue against environmental protection, which naturally requires the imposition of certain restrictions on the free market. Finally, nobody would argue that sectors such as national defence and law & order should be floated in the free market. So markets do need judicious controls and regulation.

More than ‘free’

On the flip side, in some markets there are mechanisms created specifically to encourage a bigger flow of goods & services than what the natural, ‘free’ market would sustain. These include patent laws, laws restricting monopolies, bankruptcy laws, the financial and share market, and so on; some of them may be good, while others are not.

The market is then not merely a place of exchange; it is also a place to make massive profits, where the falling crumbs accumulate to produce huge volumes of ‘wealth’. There are those who would profit exactly from this, while such ‘wealth generation’ or ‘productivity’ brings no intrinsic value to society while needlessly destroying our environment and culture – this can then become the new status quo that these new elite wish to protect.

Conclusion

A free market would promote exchange of goods & services and increase the volume of exchange, and this in turn would increase employment, productivity, taxation and funds for welfare expenditure. Both restricting it and encouraging it, while sometimes necessary, must be done only cautiously. Naturally, therefore, both extremes – and their supportive ideologies – are not good. What we need to have is a ‘middle-way’ market that enables enough economic activity and protects the poor, while protecting the environment for future generations.

So, there is no need to fear the market. What we need to do is understand it, be able to predict its behaviour, and try to modify it so that it creates the benefits we need and avoids harm. The child must grow up, overcome the fear of ghosts and learn to deal with darkness. Disingenuous, sleight-of-hand arguments that promote the darkness are of no use, and their supportive ideologies can only lead to fascism – as the twentieth century amply taught us.

The writer teaches medicine in the University of Colombo (email:

panduka@clinmed.cmb.ac.lk). He acknowledges helpful comments from Professor Sirimal Abeyratne (Professor of Economics, University of Colombo) and Dr G. Usvatte-aratchi.

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Features

Sri Lanka’s rice conundrum: Time to stop managing crises and start fixing the system

Published

21 hours ago

2026/09/4

Thilina Walpola

Prof. Ranjith Senaratne,
Emeritus Professor in Crop Science and former Vice-Chancellor,
University of Ruhuna and General President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (2023) and
Prof. Prasad Jayaweera,
Dean, Faculty of Computing, University of Sri Jayawardenapura

Rice is not merely another crop in Sri Lanka. It is our staple food, an integral part of our history and culture, and a foundation of the civilisation that flourished around our ancient hydraulic systems. Revered as Buddha Bhogaya, the Buddha’s crop, rice has sustained our people for more than two millennia. Yet, remarkably, a country with such a profound relationship with rice continues to lurch from one rice crisis to another.

At one time, we have a surplus. At another, we face shortages. Prices rise sharply, consumers complain, farmers struggle to obtain remunerative prices, millers and traders become the focus of public attention, imports are hurriedly arranged, and governments announce yet another set of measures to contain the crisis. Then, after the immediate problem subsides, the matter recedes from the national agenda, until the next crisis arrives.

Why does this keep happening despite decades of agricultural research, policy interventions, expert committees and public debate?

Perhaps because we have been asking the wrong question. The fundamental problem is not simply how to produce more rice. Nor is it merely a question of prices, imports, fertiliser, farmers, millers or markets. The rice conundrum is a complex national systems problem.

We cannot solve a system by fixing its parts in isolation

Sri Lanka’s rice sector is an intricate web of interconnected systems involving agriculture, land, water, climate, technology, finance, energy, transport, markets, trade, governance, institutions and consumer behaviour. A decision made in one part of this system can have consequences, sometimes unintended, in another.

A change in fertiliser policy, for example, can affect productivity and production costs, which in turn influence farmer profitability, market prices and the need for imports. Irrigation decisions affect not only production, but also water availability, energy use and environmental sustainability. Guaranteed prices influence farmers’ cropping decisions, while import policies can simultaneously protect consumers and weaken incentives for domestic production. Likewise, market concentration can affect both the price received by farmers and the price paid by consumers. This is precisely why isolated interventions so often produce disappointing results. We keep treating symptoms while leaving the underlying system largely untouched.

For decades, we have generated valuable scientific knowledge on individual aspects of rice production and marketing. But knowledge generated within disciplinary and institutional silos does not automatically translate into solutions to complex real-world problems. What is needed now is a fundamentally different way of thinking.

From a “rice crop” to a “rice system”

The first step is to stop looking at rice simply as something that is grown in a paddy field.

The rice system begins with land, water, seed, inputs, technology and finance. It extends through cultivation, harvesting, drying, milling, storage, transport, wholesale and retail marketing, and finally to the consumer’s table. At every stage, there are different interests, incentives, constraints and actors: farmers, farmer organisations, input suppliers, machinery operators, millers, traders, wholesalers, retailers, financial institutions, government agencies, researchers and consumers.

And hovering over the entire system are climate change, changing consumer preferences, technological transformation and national economic conditions. A weakness anywhere in this chain can compromise the performance of the whole system.

Consider post-harvest losses. If significant quantities of rice are lost because of inadequate drying, storage or processing facilities, increasing production alone cannot solve the problem. Similarly, if farmers produce efficiently but face weak markets and poor bargaining power, productivity gains may not translate into improved livelihoods.

The question, therefore, should not be “How much rice can we produce?” but “How can we make the entire rice system work better?”

That requires us to see the connections.

The missing ingredient: reliable, real-time information

There is another fundamental weakness that deserves urgent attention: we still lack a comprehensive, integrated, interoperable and reliable national information system for rice. Information is scattered among different institutions, often collected using different methodologies and not necessarily available when decisions need to be made.

How much rice will actually be produced? How much is in storage? What is the likely demand? Where are the emerging production shortfalls? What are the stocks held by different actors? How are prices moving along the value chain? What are the likely consequences of climate conditions? Without timely and reliable answers to such questions, policymakers are forced to make critical decisions with incomplete information. This is not merely an administrative inconvenience. It is a national food-security vulnerability.

Sri Lanka should therefore seriously consider establishing a National Rice Intelligence and Decision Support System (NRIDSS), an integrated digital platform that brings together relevant real-time information from agriculture, meteorology, irrigation, markets, trade, statistics and other institutions. Such a system could support production forecasting, market monitoring, import decisions, early warning and evidence-based policy formulation. In an increasingly uncertain climate and volatile global economy, this should no longer be regarded as a luxury. It is becoming an essential component of national food-system governance.

The deeper problems cannot be ignored

A systems approach would also force us to confront some uncomfortable structural realities. Why does productivity remain relatively low despite decades of research? Why are so many holdings too small to achieve economies of scale? Why are modern technologies and precision agriculture not being adopted more rapidly? Why do farmers often have limited bargaining power? Why do substantial losses occur after harvesting? Why can market power become concentrated in a relatively small number of actors? Why are guaranteed prices sometimes announced too late to influence farmers’ production decisions? Why are policy interventions so often reactive rather than proactive? And how will droughts, floods, temperature extremes, changing rainfall patterns and emerging pests affect the stability of rice production in the years ahead? These are not separate questions. They are parts of the same system.

From crisis management to systems governance

Sri Lanka does not need another isolated discussion about rice. What is needed is a national policy dialogue and action forum that brings all relevant actors together, not merely to exchange speeches, but to develop a shared understanding of the system and agree on what needs to be done. Such collaboration must go beyond consultation or the exchange of views. The different parties need to work together from problem definition through to implementation, bringing their diverse knowledge, perspectives, interests and practical experience into a common process.

Farmers bring contextual and experiential knowledge; industry actors understand market realities and operational constraints; scientists contribute evidence and analytical capabilities; policymakers bring institutional and regulatory perspectives; while technology and data specialists can provide new tools for understanding and managing the system. When these different perspectives are brought together systematically, they can reveal interdependencies, challenge assumptions, identify feasible interventions and generate solutions that are evidence-based, practically implementable and socially acceptable.

This is the essence of a transdisciplinary systems approach: not simply working across disciplines, but bringing together multiple stakeholders and multiple forms of knowledge to co-create solutions and share responsibility for outcomes. The process should therefore go beyond presentations and speeches. It should involve systems mapping, causal analysis, stakeholder dialogue, scenario planning and the participatory identification of the critical bottlenecks and leverage points in the rice system. Most importantly, it should distinguish between what is urgent and what is important, and between interventions that merely alleviate symptoms and those capable of changing the underlying behaviour of the system itself.

We need an implementation roadmap, not another report

There is, however, one important caveat. Sri Lanka has no shortage of reports, recommendations and policy documents. What we often lack is sustained implementation. Any national initiative on the rice conundrum must therefore end not with another set of broad recommendations but with a prioritised national action roadmap. It should identify short-, medium- and long-term actions, assign institutional responsibilities, establish timelines and define measurable indicators of progress. The ultimate objective should be to move Sri Lanka from reactive crisis management to proactive systems governance.

A national opportunity

The rice conundrum may, in fact, provide Sri Lanka with an opportunity that extends well beyond rice to deal with other important crops. If we can demonstrate that a complex national problem can be addressed by bringing together science, policy, stakeholder knowledge, real-time information and systems thinking, the approach could become a model for addressing other persistent challenges, from climate resilience and water security to energy, food systems and disaster risk.

The choice before us is therefore quite stark. We can continue responding to each rice crisis as it emerges, adjusting prices, arranging imports, appealing to millers, reassuring consumers and supporting farmers, only to repeat the cycle later. Or we can step back and ask a more fundamental question:

What is it about the way our rice system is structured and governed that continually produces these crises?

That is the question that needs to be answered. Sri Lanka has the scientific expertise, institutional capacity and stakeholder knowledge required to do so. What is needed now is the willingness to bring these fragmented sources of knowledge together and examine the rice sector as one interconnected system.

Our ancient civilisation understood the importance of interconnectedness: land, water, agriculture and society were organised as parts of a larger whole. Perhaps, in confronting the modern rice conundrum, we need to rediscover that systems wisdom, this time supported by modern science, technology, real-time data and transdisciplinary thinking. The time has come to stop merely managing the rice crisis. It is time to fix the system that keeps producing it.

It is against this backdrop that the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) proposes to convene shortly a “National Policy Dialogue and Action Forum on the Rice Conundrum in Sri Lanka”, bringing together the key stakeholders across the rice system. The Forum is intended to provide a platform for moving beyond piecemeal and reactive interventions towards a coordinated, evidence-based and transdisciplinary systems approach, one capable of generating lasting and pragmatic solutions to what has become an “island-shaking national issue”.

Features

This curse of partisan politics in Sri Lanka

Published

21 hours ago

2026/09/4

Thilina Walpola

78 Years of Demagoguery, Not Democracy

by Brigadier Ranjan de Silva
rpcdesilva@gmail.com

On the 4th of February every year, we raise the lion flag and speak of democracy. We speak of 78 years of “self-rule.” But honesty demands we ask: what kind of rule have we actually had? It was not democracy. Democracy is government for the common good, constrained by law, informed by reason, and accountable to truth.

What Sri Lanka has had for 78 years is demagoguery — government by manipulation, by party, and by passion.

Defining the Curse:

The dictionary defines demagoguery as “political activity that seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by rational argument.” Its tools are simple: divide the people, promise the impossible, demonize the opponent, and govern for the next election, not the next generation. That is the political culture we inherited in 1948 and perfected since.

78 Years of Evidence:

The record is not ambiguous. Policy by Pendulum – 1948–2024. Instead of a national development plan, we got a partisan wrecking ball. 1956: The “Sinhala Only Act” was passed not after linguistic study, but as an election mobilization tool. 1970-77: The SLFP nationalized private enterprise and imposed import controls. 1977: The UNP reversed course with an open economy overnight. 2005-2014: Mega infrastructure was built on Chinese loans with no feasibility transparency. 2015-2019: Those same projects were called “white elephants” and stalled. 2020-2021: The organic fertilizer ban was announced as a populist “green” policy, reversed 6 months later after it collapsed agriculture and food prices. The Colombo Port City, Hambantota Port, and the Central Expressway all followed the same pattern: started, stopped, rebranded. The country pays twice. The party takes credit once. Economics as Election Candy. Demagoguery is expensive. 1960s: Subsidized rice to win rural votes, leading to the 1971 food crisis.

2005-2014:

Fuel subsidies and public sector hiring sprees that doubled the wage bill. 2019:

Unfunded tax cuts that removed Rs. 500 billion in annual revenue with no offset. By April 2022, external debt hit $51 Billion and we defaulted for the first time. The party that cut taxes was not in power to manage the IMF program. The party that inherited it was blamed for the austerity. This is the cycle. Institutions captured. A democracy needs referees. We turned them into party cadres. The 17th Amendment 2001 created independent commissions. The 18th Amendment 2010 abolished them. The 19th 2015 restored them. The 20th 2020 gutted them again. Police transfers, university vice-chancellors, and state bank chairmen have all been decided by party headquarters, not merit.

When the institution serves the party, the citizen gets leftovers.

Identity over Ideas: From 1956 to 1983 to 2009 to 2022, our elections have been won on fear, not spreadsheets. “They will erase your language.” “They will sell the country.” “Only we can protect Buddhism/the minorities/the nation.”

Rational debate on debt, productivity, or climate adaptation never wins a rally. Prejudice does. That is demagoguery by definition.

Party Interest subverted the National Interest. The core damage of 78 years of partisan politics is this: the nation became secondary to the party. Need power sector reform? Impossible, because our unions will strike. Need to cut 300,000 ghost employees? Impossible, because our voters will defect. Need a 20-year education and export plan? Impossible, because it won’t show results before the next election. So, we borrowed. We patched. We lied. The result: a railway system that still runs on 1950s engines, hospitals without paracetamol in 2022, and a brain drain of 300,000+ skilled workers since the crisis. The parties rotated. The country declined.

The Opposition’s Original Sin and here, all parties share guilt equally. In opposition, the job is not to govern. It is to destroy. The UNP in the 60s called the SLFP “communist.” The SLFP in the 70s called the UNP “imperialist.” The JVP called both “traitors.” The SJB, SLPP, and NPP today use the same script with new logos. Every tax is “anti-people.” Every reform is “a sell-out.” Every crisis is proof the other side is evil and must be removed at any cost. Then they win. And implement 80% of what they opposed. Because demagoguery has no principles, only positions. 78 years of unmerciful, bad-faith criticism has not produced accountability. It has produced cynicism. The public now believes all politicians are the same — because for 78 years, they have behaved the same.

Breaking the Curse:

Changing the party in power will not end this. We must change the incentives that reward demagoguery. Three reforms are non-negotiable: Bind future Parliaments to national policy. Pass 10-year frameworks for energy, education, and public debt with 2/3 majority protection. Infrastructure and fiscal rules should outlast one government, as they do in Chile and New Zealand. Depoliticize the state. Independent commissions for police, elections, public service, and bribery must have constitutional budgets and appointment panels that exclude MPs. No more 18th/20th Amendment style rollbacks. Demand better from voters We must stop rewarding the best slogan and start demanding the best spreadsheet. Town halls over rallies. Costings over promises. A 5-year plan over a 5-minute speech.

In 1948, we did not inherit democracy. We inherited an election. For 78 years we have used that election to choose our favourite demagogue. The prize has been debt, division, and decay. The curse of partisan politics will only end when citizens and leaders agree on one principle: Party second. Country first. Until then, February 4th will remain a ceremony, not a celebration.

Features

Developing markets for fruits, vegetables and flowers in the Gulf

Published

21 hours ago

2026/09/4

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Export Development Board)

Export diversification – Missing the wood for the trees – Part II

by Gomi Senadhira

Sri Lanka established its diplomatic presence in the Gulf region only in the early 1980s. First, a small embassy was opened in Abu Dhabi, covering the UAE. Then in 1982, embassies were opened in Jeddah and Kuwait. The embassy in Jeddah covered Saudi Arabia while Kuwait was responsible for Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. Commercial Diplomats were also assigned to these two embassies. A senior private sector executive, with experience in marketing, was posted to Jedda as the commercial counsellor. I was posted to Kuwait as a second secretary (Commercial). Our instructions were very clear. Focus not only on traditional exports. Product diversification was a priority.

Developing Markets for Agricultural Products

At that time, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali had just launched his Export Production Villages (EPV) programme. He believed that the EPVs working closely with the exporters would provide an ideal opportunity for rural households to directly benefit from the government’s new open trade policy. Agricultural products, particularly fruits and vegetables, were a key component of this approach and the ministry thought that the Gulf countries, with large Sri Lankan communities, would have a ready-made market for these items. Thus, from day one we were compelled to explore the market for nontraditional exports; fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) were on the top of our priority list.

From cane baskets to cardboard boxes

Fortunately, the market for the F&Vs products in the region was at a very early stage of development. That provided an opportunity for Sri Lankan exporters, who were also inexperienced, to work with the importers and grow together. For example, in Kuwait, one of our first customers for F&Vs was a small supermarket where the manager was a Sri Lankan. After the first shipment arrived, he invited me to inspect the shipment. I visited the supermarket and was shocked by what I saw. While produce from other countries was packed nicely in cardboard boxes, our packaging mirrored transport to Manning market, cane baskets! As a result, fresh produce had suffered significant damage. A long report, with photographs, to the trade ministry produced an immediate response. After all, this was a pet project of the Minister. Within weeks, shipments were packed in cardboard boxes. Immediately afterwards, an expert on packaging from the Commonwealth Secretariat was sent to Kuwait with an official from the EDB to study the problem.

By then, we had also managed to develop a friendship with the management of the Salmiya supermarket, a large upmarket supermarket patronised by wealthy Kuwaitis and expats. It was a cooperative and the chairman was a Kuwaiti public servant. I could only meet him after 6 PM when his large office functioned as a diwaniya, a cherished cultural space in Kuwaiti society. Guests moved in and out the room. I had to spend time with them sipping many cups of tea. Though that meant at least two hours on each visit, it helped greatly to develop a close relationship. The general manager was an efficient and friendly Palestinian. After many visits we had succeeded in getting an order for F&Vs. The day after the first shipment arrived, I got an urgent call from the GM to come and inspect it. Once again, I was in for a surprise. Inside the cold room, the consignments from other countries were stacked neatly on top of each other, while vegetable boxes from Sri Lanka had collapsed once placed on top of each other, crushing the produce within.

Fortunately, our packaging experts arrived in Kuwait soon after this incident. They spent two days in the Salmiya Supermarket, studying the packaging from other origins. We were also successful in assuring the GM our packaging would improve. After that, packaging improved and exports moved smoothly. With that, Sri Lanka emerged as a small but reliable supplier to the mainstream market, not just the ethnic segment of the market.

Export of Fresh Vegetables by Sea

Towards the end of my tour, a Sri Lankan businessman requested me to find a buyer for cabbages, which he was prepared to export in large quantities by sea. I introduced him to the largest fruit and vegetable importer in Kuwait. Their regular suppliers of similar vegetables were Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Luckily, the company was keen to diversify the supply sources. A few weeks later, the first container load of cabbages from Sri Lanka arrived in Kuwait. Immediately after the arrival of the container, I visited the company. They were pleased with the quality and the price and were looking forward to importing more fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a one-off event. Later on, when I was back in Sri Lanka, the exporter informed me that he couldn’t continue with it due to the problems with the local supply chains.

Floriculture

During the period I was asked by the EDB to explore the market for floricultural products, more particularly for cut flowers. At that time Kuwait was a relatively large importer of cut flowers and live plants. The main suppliers were the Netherlands and Colombia. Importers were also reluctant to move out of the established supply chain, particularly due to “snob value” associated with the product from Europe. However, after some difficulties, one importer agreed to place a pre-paid trial order. After the arrival of that shipment, he was impressed by the quality of the product and the orders expanded rapidly. As a result, by the end of 1985 Kuwait had become a major buyer of Sri Lanka’s floricultural products.

From village to global markets

As a result of the proactive promotional work undertaken by the EDB and the embassies in the region, by 1985, Sri Lanka had managed to acquire a small but significant share of the F&V and floriculture markets in the GCC countries. We had also identified domestic supply chain issues that hindered exports. All that was done, long before Southeast Asian or African countries even entered into that market. In fact, my Southeast Asian colleagues used to contact me often to reserve “durian” for them at the “Sri Lankan supermarket”.

Most importantly, a substantially large share of produce from Sri Lanka in Kuwaiti supermarkets originated in the EPVs. Of course, that didn’t just happen. The ministry (or the minister) using the carrot and stick approach “encouraged” exporters to buy the produce directly from the newly established EPVs. (The writer can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)