Forest fires were raging in southern California at the time of writing. The deadly combination of an exceptionally dry period — Los Angeles received only 0.16 inches of rain since October — and powerful offshore gusts known as the Santa Ana winds whipped the roaring flames ever wider and deadlier. The cause was pinpointed. A man pushed his burning car into a ravine near Chico and the metal dragging on the ground is believed to have caused the fire. The latest statistic for human death caused by fire is 24.

A disaster anywhere, even in the most prosperous, powerful and proud nation is cause for universal sympathy and condolence. But it is inevitable that like in Cassandra’s mind, people will recall the thousands willfully killed and injured in the Gaza strip by the Israeli Army. Can you imagine willfully letting people starve and babies freeze to death, just because the wandering Jew was given a land in Palestinian country to settle down in, and now wants to annex more of land around it and drive out or cause genocide in neighbouring states. Thus, the word and its meaning – retribution comes to mind; paying for one’s sins. And why must the US pay? Because it supports financially, politically and with arms and planes, warring Israel.

Cass watched a video clip that had a preacher pronounce that Hollywood was burning because at a recent awards ceremony God was blasphemed. So, God turned around and brought raging fire to Hollywood and surrounding districts. If God is merciful why these deadly tit for tat costing so much in resources: human and material.

The rational reason, of course, is global warning which exacerbates natural disasters, and excessive expansion of human habitats too close to forests.

Funeral of Ex-President Jimmy Carter

Maureen Dowd wrote an excellent article – as is her way – in the NYT, titled Five Presidents and a funeral, in which her focus was contrasting the late ex-president to the soon-to-be-returned next president. The five US Presidents present at the state funeral, all seated together in adjacent pews were George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Of the spouses, Michele Obama was prominently absent.

Dowd starts her comment thus: “Jimmy Carter was exactly where he wanted to be at his funeral on Thursday – at a deliberate remove from his fellow presidents. And slightly above them.”

The first contrast between the deceased President and the revived President was that they were at opposite ends on the moral scale.  “Here was Carter, the righteous, ascending to heaven, as Donald Trump, the felonious, ascended again to the Oval Office. Carter’s passion for honesty was as ingrained as Trump’s addiction to lying.  Even as Carter was being praised at his state funeral at the National Cathedral working tirelessly to eradicate diseases, Trump was hunting for a disease to pin on immigrants to justify sealing the border. While the centenarian was heralded for his virtue and monogamous 77-year marriage with Rosalynn, Trump was bracing to be sentenced on his vice – falsifying records to cover up an infidelity with a porn star, conducted while Melania was home taking care of her newborn son.”

Maureen Dowd continues the contrast by bringing in the entirely different attitudes to climate change Carter and Trump had. Carter very early on detected the danger of global warming and took measures to curb pollution. When Carter lay in state in the Capitol, Kamala Harris paid a sincere and heart-warming tribute  to him in which she itemized his achievements as Prez, like his energy policy, his vision of protecting the environment, doubling the area under parks, extending protection to the Redwoods, appointing more Blacks to positions of power and increased employment of women five times. Trump ignored and denied global warming and may not have changed his stance. He had America withdrawing from the Paris meeting on global warming in 2017 and directed the US not sign the final statement.

If you take that statement of Carter’s achievements while he was 39th President, the contrast between the two is further amplified.  Trump cares little about surroundings as long as he lives like a king; he disdains Blacks and others of colour with his White Supremacy belief, and women he treats so very condescendingly.

Dowd’s final comparison is naming the two: Farmer from Plains vs. Emperor of Chaos.

Cynicism clouded as criticism

Cassandra has recently read and heard criticism of the NPP not keeping to its election manifesto of promises and almost going back on what it promised. Criticism is good and necessary. Any government should allow it and listen, and take action to correct mistakes. Previous governments did not tolerate fault finding even when it was justified. Some governments gagged the press, burnt outfits and killed journalists. We were made to believe the NPP was different and we did and do believe this. Thus, while criticism is good it must be firm-foundationed and justified.

It is said that the NPP government has kept to the bargain thrashed out by Ranil W’s SLPP government with the IMF. It is of absolute paramount importance that Sri Lanka gets untangled from bankruptcy and dire economic woes. The NPP would surely have studied options and decided not to make too many changes in negotiation with the IMP which seemed to satisfy this body so it continues to assist SL to rise from abject economic downfall. The critics say the poor still suffer – taxes, etc. Yes, but the rich are not going to be given the chance to live like kings on pilfered government money. All are called upon to tighten belts and those in power are doing so – no extravagances. There is no justification for the NPP government but all political parties do not keep pre-election promises. Also, we believe the present government is doing the best for the country. So, drop that criticism unless you are an expert economist.

Another criticizing question which is hardly camouflaged cynicism, is: Where are the caught rogues? Where is the brought back lucre? If people think you can catch cunning masterminds who have stashed stolen money and gold, etc., or those advised by master crooks how to cover their stealing steps and stolen goods, they are simpletons. See how difficult it is to swat a fly. Criminals are escapists. All possible evidence must be collected before an arrest is made. Remember the flawed, half-baked cases of corruption thrown aside as lacking substantial evidence. Both Lasantha Wickrematunge and Wasim Thajudeen were not even left in peace after they were brutally and openly murdered. First cases – just dismissed. Then came Yahapalanaya and renewed investigations. Again, failure and murderers left smirking, completely free.  So, give the present government time and then pitch into them if, like other governments did, the NPP also lets the high-flying rogues and murderers continue flying high.

We Ordinaries continue being hopeful Sri Lanka will be turned around – IMF aided; friendly relations diplomatically forged through successful presidential visits; officers working conscientiously; and corruption reduced.

by Rajan Philips

There is an abundance of historical data available on the extent of land cultivation and the amount of paddy harvested based on well-established yields per unit area. Separate sets of statistics cover the Maha and the Yala seasons. The amount of rice produced is estimated to be about two thirds of cultivated paddy by weight. Paddy cultivation as well as rice production and consumption statistics are also available in an impressively disaggregate format, including sectoral (urban, rural, estate), provincial and district distributions. The data also includes expenditure on rice consumption as a proportion of household income on the same disaggregate basis.

However, there appears to be no matching data on the amount of rice sold and bought whether wholesale or retail, either at the national level or at the sectoral and spatial levels. This is a critical data gap that would help those who manipulate the supply of rice and handicap those who try to enable the even distribution of rice in the retail market throughout the year. It is my purpose to elaborate on this to provoke some discussion, if not action.

Impressive Production Data

According to the Department of Census and Statistics data base, Sri Lanka maintains an island wide enumeration system for each parcel of land where paddy is cultivated. Data is collected for each season based on information provided by Agricultural Research and Production Assistants and Grama Niladari acting as “primary reporters.” In addition, the “average yield of paddy” is estimated at the district level using a sample survey known as “the crop cutting survey” that currently includes 4,000 “paddy tracts” for each of the two paddy growing seasons. The enumeration and the sample survey processes have been in place from 1951. This is quite impressive considering the slacking and sliding in so many areas of government due to political monkeying.

Based on the 2023 paddy statistics that I referenced last week, 4.5M metric tons of paddy was produced for the year from a total cultivation area of 1.16M hectares at an average yield of 3870 kg/ha. Seasonally, 2.7M metric tons (60%) were produced from 722,500 (62%) hectares at 3737 kg/ha in the Maha season; and 1.8M metric tons (40%) were produced from 440,300 hectares (38%) at 4,088 kg/ha in the Yala season.

Converting paddy to rice, 4.5M metric tons of paddy was milled into 3.0M metric tons of rice to meet the annual rice demand of 2.5M metric tons based on an annual average per capita consumption of 115 kg of rice. We can ignore the rounding off statistics for 2023, such as imports, stock change and exports, on the supply side, and the amount of seed paddy, processed paddy and waste, on the demand side. For 2023, some 29,000 metric tons of rice was imported, and 8,000 metric tons of rice was exported. The import volume would be much higher in a year of low paddy production due to weather effects.

For a typical year, over 90% of imported rice is from India, and Sri Lanka is identified as one of the major importers of rice from Tamil Nadu whose non-basmati rice exports account for 10% of all rice exports from India. More than 60% Sri Lankan rice exports are destined to western countries with not insignificant Sri Lankan diaspora populations. On the export side, the Sri Lankan short-grain rice is not considered to be export-attractive. However, given the plethora of rice varieties in Sri Lanka, it is not known if there have been strong efforts to find niche markets for some of the island’s historic and unique rice varieties.

Year Round Distribution

The generally available paddy/rice production statistics provide data for total rice production only but for the commonly marketed Nadu, Red, Samba, Keeri Samba rice varieties. But such data appears to available at the official level. In the recent controversy over the (hilariously, allegedly Wickremesinghe-induced) shortage of Red rice, Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Wasantha Samarasinghe provided production data for Red rice for the year 2024. The Minister’s point was that there should not have been Red rice shortage given the 2023/24 Maha season cultivation of 706,000 metric tons of paddy from 277,000 hectares and the 2024 cultivation of 403,097 metric tons (the area of cultivation was not indicated). The Minister also noted that the Red rice growing paddy fields are more in the southern and eastern districts.

In proportion to the 2023 total rice production figures, the Red rice portion would be 26% for the Maha season and 22% for the Yala season. The area of cultivation for Red rice is 38% of the total cultivation area for the Maha season, which would indicate a lower yield rate for Red rice than the average yield. My point in this is that it would be helpful for the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) in include in its commonly available paddy/rice statistics the cultivation and production figures for the different rice types in the market. DCS already provides data for the weekly changes in the prices of the different rice types, and it would be helpful to have their production data also available to the public.

Similarly, the district-wise breakdown of paddy statistics provides the total rice production data for each district, but not for different rice types cultivated in different districts. For total paddy production in the 2023/24 Maha season, nine of the 24 districts (Hambantota, Mannar Batticaloa, Ampara, Trincomalee, Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Monaragala) produced more than 100,000 metric tons, three of which (Ampara, Kurunegala, and Polonnaruwa) exceeded 200,000 metric tons, and Anuradhapura registered the biggest harvest exceeding 450,000 metric tons.

In the 2024 Yala season, seven of the 24 districts (Hambantota, Batticaloa, Ampara, Trincomalee, Kurunegala, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa) produced more than 100,000 metric tons, during the Yala season with four of them (Ampara, Kurunegala, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa) exceeding 200,000 metric tons. The noted nine districts are also the rice-surplus districts which in theory should be able to meet their own consumption demands. The other fifteen districts which are generally the more populous districts are invariably the rice-deficit districts and have to depend on rice transported from the surplus districts to meet their higher demands.

Paucity of Marketing Data

As I noted at the outset, in comparison to the relatively rich paddy production statistics there is no matching data for the amounts of paddy or rice that are transacted in the wholesale and retail markets. The absence of marketing data is referenced in the academic and research writings on Sri Lanka’s rice milling industry, and these studies generally base themselves on available but inadequate surveys of existing rice mills.

It would seem that there is no reckonable information on the rice milling sector itself. There are apparently over 7,000 mills in the country, which widely range from small to medium, large and very large in their size and capacity. Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts reportedly include the highest number of rice mills as well as the largest among them.

In terms of their physical make up and production capacity, the big Sri Lankan rice mills rival the mills in rice exporting Asian countries. The well known Silos Spain mill building company boasts on its website of the rice milling plants it has built in Sri Lanka for Lakbima Rice Mills. The emerging Hongjia Grain Machinery Company of China carries on its website a “Rice Mill Industry Analysis” for Sri Lanka and offers itself as a worthy resource for supplying machinery and building new rice mills in Sri Lanka. I am of course unaware if any of the large rice mills in Sri Lanka have been built by Hongjia Company.

There are two points to be made here. First, Sri Lanka’s rice milling industry has grown and expanded to a stage that makes the old storage silos put up by the Paddy Marketing Board look pathetic and primitive. There is no point in going back to stone age in rice milling and storage. Nor is there any point in getting Chinese or Indian assistance for the Paddy Marketing Board to build competing state owned rice mills in the country. If there is a need for additional rice mills let the private capital look after it and find more fruitful opportunities for investing scarce public funds.

Second, as others have pointed out, the Paddy Market Board rather than getting back in the business of collecting and storing paddy, could and should be used to exercise at least some its extensive (but long dormant) regulatory powers over the rice milling industry. The PMB has the power to license and refuse licenses to rice milling operations. I have no information as to whether the operating rice mills are licensed by the PMB. The PMB website does not seem to carry any licensing information the way the Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) provides information on its licence holders in the energy industry.

Pertinent to marketing data, the PMB has the power (under Section 13 of its enabling legislation) “to carry out investigations and record data concerning production, sale, supply, storage, purchase, distribution, hulling, milling or processing of paddy and rice.” There is no reason why the PMB has not been doing this over the years and why it cannot be directed to do so now by the NPP government.

To add a note of caution, the exercise of this regulatory power should not be to harass individual farmers and smallholders who mill their own produce to make ends meet, but to get marketing information from the large millers who control a substantial portion of the paddy purchase and rice supply.

Lastly, a comment on parliament’s role in this. The lack of marketing statistics for rice is evident in the public discussion on rice shortages. However, this data gap does not seem to bother parliamentarians whenever they raise questions about rice and ministers do not provide answers that are informed by helpful statistics. That should not be surprising given the decline and fall of parliamentary expertise under the weight of the equally ill informed executive presidency.

Old parliamentarians like CP de Silva, Philip Gunawardena, Dudley Snananayke and Dr SA Wickremesinghe were acknowledged rice experts. Writing in a Daily News supplement to mark the occasion of the closure of the old parliament and its relocation to Kotte from Colombo, Pieter Keuneman recalled an impromptu three-way discussion, between Dudley Senanayake, CP de Silva and SA Wickremesinghe, on irrigation and paddy cultivation as one of the finest hours of the Beira Lake parliament.

Parliamentarians of the Left, in spite of their revolutionary generalizations, were also nerdy sticklers for detail. Once NM Perera berated Finance Minister Felix Dias for increasing the wholesale price of a gallon of arrack by an amount not divisible by six, because arrack taverns were going to reap rounding off profit from the retail price of a bottle of arrack.

I am nostalgically recalling all this in the hope that the current parliament, the most Left in our history, will once again become an institution that keeps itself well informed for its deliberations and decisions. None more so than in the area of paddy and rice in general, and their marketing in particular. And never more than now when the Left is in government and not in opposition.

by Rohan Wijesinha

It is mooted on social media that the hierarchy of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) has determined that to rid themselves of the headache of Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC), they will drive all wild elephants into the confines of National Parks and imprison them there, with no consideration of it exceeding the carrying capacity of the parks. At present, this seems just rumour and conjecture but the recent actions of the DWC certainly give credence to the suggestion.

If there is truth to the rumour, then the total population of the wild elephant has to be reduced from the present number to less than 2,000 for the National Parks to be able to sustain captive herds and, even then, for a very short time. As per the official census of 2011, there were approximately 6,000 wild elephants in Sri Lanka. A politician recently suggested the figure of 7,000 (and the just completed census will inevitably support this), though it is uncertain as to what scientific knowledge this claim was based on. In which case, approximately 5,000 elephants need to be obliterated.

There are two obvious ways of accomplishing this:

· Kill 5,000 wild elephants.

· Drive them into National Parks and contain them there; to starve to death.

Both methodologies will result in the planned massacre of thousands of elephants – one quick and messy, and the second through the protracted starvation and suffering of these creatures. Is this consistent with the supposed religious ideology and culture of this Nation?

As per official figures, since 2010 to date, approximately 4,250 elephants have perished. If the 2011 census is close to correct, then the remaining number should be less than 2,000. Yet, claims are being made for over three times that number. It takes 22 months for an elephant calf to be born. The female will then not come into estrous for another two to three years until her calf is weaned. Despite all of this, if the number has grown by this much, then nothing short of a biological miracle has taken place; unless the 2011 census was woefully incorrect. If that is so, then the recent census undertaken using the same methodology is hardly likely to be accurate as well.

Returning to a Failed System

The DWC has previously stated that driving elephants does not work. This is for a variety of reasons, the foremost being that HEC is mainly caused by male elephants. However, when there is a ‘drive’, all elephants in the area are driven away; mainly females and their calves. Many of the males, by now used to thunder flashes and noise, remain hidden. Even when driven away, they often return in search of their home ranges; deafened by elephant bombs and even blinded by rubber bullets, they are now much more aggressive and resentful of people.

The females and calves remain where they have been driven to; traumatized and often injured, many perish, often from starvation. This tragically happened when elephants were driven into the Lunugamvehera National Park during the Walawe Left Bank Development Project. In addition to elephants perishing as a result of this drive, a survey undertaken by the Center for Conservation and Research (CCR) found that three months after the drive, 71% of the farmers said that HEC intensity was the same or worse than before the drive. The drive was detrimental to elephant conservation and neither did it help the farmers. This begs the question, why does DWC conduct elephant drives?

A National Park can host a finite number of elephants. This number varies according to the amount of fodder available for them in it. If this number is exceeded, then these highly intelligent animals will attempt to leave the confines of the Park, or die. This is why even now, elephants range from one area to another, to permit the foliage in the previous place to replenish itself. In the Uda Walawe National Park, researchers have found that the elephant population has decreased by 50% in the last 10 years. This is due to bad habitat management resulting in the loss of grasslands. The rest have either died or moved to other areas. Inevitably, HEC has increased. In the Yala National Park, thanks to fencing the elephants in, over 50% of the calves die within two years due to malnutrition. There are indications that calves are dying in the Lunugamvehera NP too due to poor habitat quality. This is a portent of things to come if these drives continue.

What elephants and informed science are aware of, the National custodians of these magnificent animals choose to ignore. The DWC, with political patronage, is in the process of driving approximately 150 elephants from the Sharvatipura area, near Anuradhapura, to the Wilpattu National Park; a sanctuary for wildlife but NOT for a large number of elephants. Grass is the major food source of elephants and lacking large open grasslands, it rarely attracts any herds of any size into its interior. Its beautiful forests lack the varieties preferred by elephants, and their height and stature, make whatever there inaccessible to them. In addition, in their desperate attempts to find something to eat, elephants could change the habitat of the Park with serious consequences to all of the other of its wondrous inhabitants. Imagine those beautiful forests turning into scrubland. It could happen.

Sacrificial Lambs

At present, these 150 sacrifices to knee-jerk political requirement are stranded in the Oya Maduwa NLDB Farm awaiting what else the DWC has in store for them. For, predictably, the drive is not quite going to plan. Ill thought out schemes rarely do e.g. who would drive elephants during the cultivation season through cultivation to where they are to go? Why doesn’t the DWC tell the politicians what they need to know rather than what they would like to hear?

Some 44% of the land mass of Sri Lanka is shared by humans and elephants. This is not new. In previous times it was much more. Those ancient communities knew how to live with elephants and other wild animals as their neighbours. Since Independence, with the increase in development, communities from other areas were relocated to these places and were largely unaware of how to deal with their wild neighbours. Soon coexistence turned to conflict with, inevitably, the stronger being the overall victor.

Yet today, nothing has been learned; or is it that much has been learned but not corrected? In fact, history will be harsh on this country’s statutory guardians of its wilderness and wildlife.

Saving human lives and livelihoods

Human lives are lost in this conflict too, over 1,000 in the last 10 years. In 2020, a Presidential Committee was set up to formulate a National Actions Plan for HEC Mitigation. This committee comprised of all the relevant stake holders from the National to the Local Government levels, elephants researchers and scientists, conservation NGOs and informed lay people. The Plan’s primary focus was to keep people safe. This was to be achieved by erecting community based village and agricultural fencing, protecting people and their cultivation. This National Action Plan (NAP) commenced implementation in 2023 but with minimal budgetary allocations provided. Once again, a solution only partially tried and then forgotten, for the policymakers seek quick solution for a problem that has been decades in the making.

Cultivation and community fencing has been tried and tested, by the Centre for Conservation and Research (CCR) in over 70 villages in the North Central, North Western, Southern and North Eastern Provinces, with 100% success. There are around 300 paddy field fences erected by the Department of Agrarian Development in 2024 through the implementation of the NAP. That plus, some work done by the DWC of more diligent fence monitoring etc., appears to have helped because the elephant and human deaths in 2024 are less than 2023.

If the NAP had been implemented in full, much of what is taking place now could have been averted. As such, it was hoped that the new Government which was elected on a mandate of change, with a promise of letting science and informed knowledge lead the way, would implement in full this Plan of learned compilation. Instead, they seem to have stuck by those policies of old with only thought of the present, while damning the country and its future.

Saving a National Asset

Look at any website advertising the wonders of this little island and there will invariably be a picture of elephants and other wildlife displayed on it. It is the natural wonders of this country that draws visitors to it, with over 30% of them visiting National parks and other protected areas. They bring in millions of dollars of revenue to Sri Lanka. Without wildlife, who would come? It must be remembered that elephants are a keystone species vital for the well-being of a Park. Without them, the other wildlife, and the habitat, would rapidly deteriorate.

Future generations, the World, will never forgive us if we drive this unique subspecies of the Asian Elephant into extinction. If HEC is to be reduced, and it must, then the following should be undertaken:

· Set up a Presidential Task Force or Committee to facilitate, oversee and monitor the full implementation of the National Action Plan.

· Stop illegal encroachment into National Parks and other protected areas.

· Implement a system of planned development which takes into account the wildlife and other natural wonders of an area.

· Set up mechanisms for local communities to directly benefit from having wildlife as neighbours e.g. community based wildlife/bird watching outside of protected areas, selling of arts and crafts to tourists, village cookery lessons, etc.

· STOP ELEPHANT DRIVES.

It is hoped that sense will prevail.