Saturday 26th October, 2024

Gastronomically speaking, nothing could be considered closer to the hearts of Sri Lankans than rice and coconut, or haal and pol. They have become a collocation in Sri Lankan cuisine and culture. These two commodities, which are also an integral part of Sri Lanka’s culinary heritage, even have the potential to break governments.

It was an increase in the price of a measure of rice that triggered a tsunami of public anger in 1953, leading to a hartal, which shook the then UNP government to its very foundation. The fall of the SLFP-led United Front government in 1977 was also mostly due to a chronic scarcity of rice and restrictions placed on the consumption thereof.

Both rice and coconuts are in short supply these days, and their astronomical prices have made them almost unaffordable to the ordinary people. The new government is struggling to make them available freely at reasonable prices. This situation could not have come about at a worse time for it; the next general election is only a couple of weeks away. Yesterday, we discussed President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s efforts to tame the millers’ Mafia, which controls the paddy and rice markets and resort to exploitative practices to maximise profit at the expense of both the farmer and the consumer.

Traditional coconut oil manufacturers have sought to lay the blame for the current scarcity and the escalating prices of coconuts at the feet of big companies that produce coconut-based-products for export. This claim is only partially true; there are several other factors that have led to the current problem, which is not of recent origin. Some of the causative factors have gone unaddressed for decades.

Lean seasons are not uncommon where coconut production is concerned, and during them the supply of coconuts drops steeply and prices soar for a couple of weeks. But the problem at hand looks different. It cannot be reduced to the export of coconut-based products alone. Coconut growers complain that they have had to cut down on the fertiliser input for economic reasons. Lack of fertiliser has affected both the yield and the quality of coconuts. This is an issue that has to be addressed on a priority basis.

Coconut plantations have been affected by various diseases over the decades, and the response of the authorities concerned to the outbreaks of diseases is unsatisfactory, according to cultivators. Many coconut palms have to be felled as a result, and diseases affect not only the productivity of palms but also the quality of nuts.

Wildlife depredation is another factor that has reduced the national coconut production hugely, according to agricultural experts. Over 200 million coconuts were destroyed by monkeys and giant squirrels in 2022 alone, according to a study conducted by the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. The situation could be far worse as many instances of wildlife depredation go unreported. Coconut growers and the cultivators of other food crops have been urging successive governments to solve this problem, but in vain.

Real estate development has also taken a heavy toll on coconut plantations and led to the decrease in national coconut yield; coconut plantations continue to be converted into residential, commercial and industrial properties. Only a ban on this practice will help arrest the destruction of coconut plantations and increase the annual coconut yield. The impact of Climate Change on coconut plantations is real, but it is yet to be assessed much less addressed.

The scarcity of rice is no doubt artificial, as President Dissanayake has rightly said, but the same cannot be said of the shortfall in the coconut supply, which has remained chronic, according to the Coconut Development Board statistics. Therefore, it requires a radical rethink of the strategies that have been adopted so far, if any, and a holistic approach to increase the national coconut yield significantly while measures are taken to mitigate the problem in the short-term. This should be a top priority task for the next government. Half-hearted efforts and playing politics with the issue won’t do.