The rice crisis

Several decades ago, when the Food Drive led by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake in a bold move to achieve self-sufficiency in essential foods wherever possible, the press officer in Mr. MD Banda’s Agriculture and Food Ministry, Lakshman Ratnapala telephoned several prominent personalities to get their views on the effort. One of them, the late Dr. EW Adikaram, the ascetic academic, told Ratnapala: “I can tell you what I think but you will not be able to publish my view.” The press officer urged “never mind, Sir, please tell me.” Adikaram’s reply: “I think we are already self-sufficient in rice because we eat twice as much as we need to!”

However that be, in the years since Dudley Senanayake’s Food Drive, we have heard boastful claims from many ministers that self-sufficiency in rice has been achieved. During Mr. EL Senanayake’s time as agriculture minister a cargo of rice was even exported to an African country. If the annual rice consumption of a population that has increased sharply over the years and the domestic production are compared, without doubt the self-sufficiency claim will be proved accurate. Yet we continue to often import rice to contend with a real or perceived shortages.

Our regular columnist Rajan Philips wrote on this page last Sunday of “Sri Lanka’s Perennial Rice Crisis: Scarcity Despite Self-Sufficiency” neatly summing up the existing situation. For the past several years, a so-called Mafia of large scale rice millers have been accused of hoarding and price manipulation to the detriment of both producer and consumer alike. Recent inspections have not been able to establish hoarding. Noises made by government on its commitment to end such practices have been all froth and no beer. Imposition of controlled prices have not worked with the available enforcement mechanism lacking the required muscle. Many traders refrained from stocking saying that selling at the declared maximum retail price (MRP) would mean losses.

Although government permitted rice imports, it imposes a high tax of Rs. 65 per kilo no doubt in an effort to safeguard producer interests rather than as a revenue raising measure. Finely balancing producer and consumer interests in determining the price of rice is a very difficult if not an impossible exercise. Recent and present shortages per se were not of rice itself but of certain varieties of rice, Nadu in particular. Red rice too was short in some areas, something the opposition seized on to say this affected the cooking of Pongal rice by Hindus to celebrate last week’s festival. The government countered by attributing the shortage to Ranil Wickremesinghe’s distribution of free red rice before the presidential election.

A variety of factors come into play in the availability and price of rice which is not only the country’s staple food but had also long been a staple of politics. For example there was a price incentive to produce keeri samba. When there was an over-supply of this variety, considered superior and therefore more expensive, some traders made the purchase of a quantity this variety a condition for selling cheaper rice. Whatever the recent convulsions regarding the prices and availability of rice, we were never confronted by a situation similar to the post-1970 crisis of the Sirima Bndaranaike-led United Front government when rice less days were mandated by law and haal pollas (rice barriers) erected to prevent the transport of paddy/rice across districts.

A factor that has contributed to the present problem has been the running down of the state-owned Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) and the fact that the PMB continues with outdated warehousing rather than using silos for grain storage like the big millers do. An effort to rehabilitate rundown PMB warehouse has now begun and hopefully the board will soon be effective in the market.

What’s in a name?

As readers are well aware, appreciations of people no longer alive, written by their friends and relatives are regular features in most newspapers. When very well know figures like former President Jimmy Carter of the USA and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India died recently, their obituaries were published not only in their own countries but also globally. In our paper last Sunday, Amal Jayasinghe, long time bureau chief in Colombo of the Agence France-Presse (AFP), wrote an appreciation of his father marking his seventh death anniversary.

This was no common or garden obituary. Using his considerable writing skills, the writer focused on his father’s names. Originally named Hirohito Edward Jayasinghe, these names were later replaced with Lenin Lindbergh with the subject living out his life as Lenin Jayasinghe. Lenin, though not common, was not totally unknown in then Ceylon and now Sri Lanka. If fact we even have a Joseph Stalin leading a teachers’ trade union and there have been more than one Hitler in this country. Also Shakespeare from Jaffna, a Bradman in the Ceylon Civil Service and elsewhere but no Mussolini we know of. Hirohito we have not heard before.

We all know the Solomon West Ridegeway (a British Governor General) Dias Bandaranaike though fewer would know that the name Solomon was carried by at least three generations of the Bandaranaikes with even Anura bearing that name. He was Anura Priyadhrshana Solomon Dias Bandaranaike. SWRD, apparently, was called “Solla” in close family circles. We also had Henry Woodward (famous principal of Mahinda College, Galle) Amarasuriya well know for his wealth and political role having been elected to parliament and served as a cabinet minister. The writer had a friend who named his daughter Romancita after a race horse – whether it was winner he backed we do not know.

Nicknames too are galore in schools and not only for teachers. There was a Yakadaya at royal College followed by his sibling Malakadaya!