Features
Paddy-Rice Data Gap: How much grown? How much sold?

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.
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.
Features
The Rohingya question and states’ international obligations

The presence of Rohingya refugees in Sri Lanka has prompted sections in the South of the country to raise some concerns in connection with it but The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka’s (THRCSL) recent report on the issue, if received and read in a spirit of reconciliation and humanity, should put their minds at ease.
To be sure, there is considerable substance in the objections and worries of the relevant Southern quarters but the majority of the refugees in question need to be seen as victims of complex political circumstances in their countries of origin over which they do not have any control.
Those Rohingyas who are now literally adrift in the seas of South Asia and beyond, are strictly speaking stateless. Most of them are escaping endemic political turmoil and runaway lawlessness in the Rakhine state of Mynamar and the spillover of such tensions into the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and beyond.
There has been playing out in the Rakhine region over the decades a Rohingya armed struggle for autonomy but the majority of the Rohingyas are not in any way supportive of this armed struggle which is an expression of the Rohingyas’ awareness of their separate identity as a community, although they possess a wider Muslim identity as well.
But there has been an influx of Rohingya refugees to several neighbouring countries from this conflict, including very significantly Bangladesh, and this has been triggering concerns among the wider publics in those states which are compelled to manage the Rohingya refugee presence amid economic pressures of their own.
The problems arising from the Rohingya refugee presence have been compounded by the rise of Islamic militancy in South Asia and the tendency among some of these militant groups to exploit this presence for the propagation of their causes.
However, this does not take away from the fact that the majority of Rohingyas are helpless victims of circumstance. They are caught up in the metaphorical ‘exchange of fire’ between mutually suspicious states that are compelled to contend with issues growing out of the rise of Islamic militancy. But for the majority of Rohingyas such endemic conflicts among states translate into displacement, statelessness and growing powerlessness.
For an enlightened understanding of what states need to do in connection with the refugee crisis and connected questions it would be necessary to read the THRCSL report above mentioned. States that are members of the UN family are obliged to ratify and implement a number of conventions related to refugees and the THRCSL mentions some of these. They are: The 1951 Convention on Refugees; 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons; 1961 Convention on the Reduction of the Stateless and the Rights of Refugees and Stateless Persons within Sri Lanka.
If Sri Lanka and other countries facing a refugee influx have not adopted these laws they would need to do so without further delay if they are opting to remain within the UN fold. In this connection, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be seen to be of fundamental importance. The Declaration is the fountainhead, so to speak, of international humanitarian law and UN members states have no choice but to adhere to it.
Contentious issues are likely to grow out of the implementation part of the mentioned conventions but it is best that signatory states take up these matters with the relevant key agencies of the UN rather than grouch over matters that surface from their inalienable obligations towards the stateless and homeless.
It was encouraging to note a Southern group in Sri Lanka mentioning that the Lankan government should draw the attention of the UNHRC to the fact that the state is not a signatory to some of the mentioned refugee conventions. This is the way to go. A dialogue process with the UNHRC, which does not happen to be very popular in Sri Lanka, on such issues would perhaps throw up fresh insights on Sri Lanka’s obligations on refugee issues that may then convince the state to sign and ratify the conventions concerned.
There needs to be a flourishing of such positive approaches to meeting Sri Lanka’s obligations as a UN member state. The present most unhappy existence of being a UN member state and not implementing attendant obligations needs to end if Sri Lanka is not to be accused of ‘double speak’ and ‘double think’.
Meanwhile, identity politics and connected problems are bound to remain in South Asia and bedevil all efforts by states of the region to see eye-to-eye on issues such as the stateless. The yawning ‘democratic deficit’ in South Asia continues to be a formidable challenge.
But all efforts should be made to reduce this deficit through collaborative efforts among the concerned states. This is so because increasing democratization of states remains the most effective means of making identity politics irrelevant and the latter is a primary cause for the break-up of states, which process throws-up troubling consequences, such as statelessness and refugees.
Fresh initiatives need to be undertaken by the ‘South Asian Eight’ to end the continuing ‘Cold War’-type situation between India and Pakistan, since they hold the key to re-activating SAARC and making it workable once again. It ought to be plain to see that it is only the SAARC spirit that could help in ushering a degree of solidarity in South Asia which could go some distance in resolving issues growing out of nation-breaking.
Once again, South-South cooperation should be seen as a compelling necessity. If vital sections of the South come to this realization and recognize the need for such intra-regional cooperation, the coming back to power of Donald Trump could be considered as having yielded some good, though in a highly negative way. Because Trump has made it all too plain that he would not be considering it obligatory on the part of the US to help ease the lot of the South any more.
The South would have no choice but to fall back on strategies of self-reliance. No doubt, this situation would accrue to the benefit of the world’s powerless. Self-reliance is the best option and the only key to unravelling external shackles that bind the South to the North.
Meanwhile, those sections of Southern Sri Lanka that are tending to cheer Trump on need to put the brakes on any such idle distractions. The message that Trump has for the world is one of division and strife. By rolling back almost all the progressive ventures that have come out of Washington over the years, Trump is plunging the world into further ‘disorder’. The international community needs to brace for stepped-up nation-breaking.
Features
Effective and non-effective methods for mitigating human-elephant conflict

by Tharindu Muthukumarana
tharinduele@gmail.com
(Author of the award-winning book “The Life of Last Proboscideans: Elephants”)
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.
-Albert Einstein
When we examine the records of funds spent in the years beforehand to mitigate human-elephant conflict (HEC), it is evident that the expenditure has been growing. For example, in 2010, USD $505,001 was spent, but in 2018, USD $1,068,021 was spent. So, this shows that expenditure had been over double within a period of less than one decade. But in the same way, the HEC had always been rising throughout the years. So, what went wrong? The answer is that the funds were expended mostly on ineffective mitigating strategies rather than effective mitigating approaches. Henceforth, let’s look at a glimpse of what are the non-effective methods and effective methods.
Non-effective methods Translocation
Elephant translocation involves capturing elephants from one place and moving them to a safer environment. Sri Lanka had done this for many decades. One of the earliest translocations occurred in 1979, when 10 elephants were relocated from Deduru Oya to Wilpattu National Park (NP). So, it was a new experience for the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), and they even had to get a foreign veterinary surgeon named Dr. Ian Hoffmeyr from Etosha NP in Namibia to sedate the elephants.
Unfortunately, radio tracking collars were not put on those elephants to monitor updates of those elephants. So, ultimately what happened was that those translocated elephants’ status never got documented. However, in recent translocations, the GPS tracking collars were fixed on them and have given accurate updates on their whereabouts. According to those data, 3 conclusions are probable: (i) The translocated elephant got killed in the new home. (ii) Left the new home and returned to the initial home. (iii) created conflict with neighbouring villagers in the new home.
As for example, in 2007, a tusker named Ravana that was crop raiding in Anuradhapura got translocated to Udawalawe NP. He then got into conflict with neighbouring villages of Handapanagala, Aluthwewa, and Buttala. Due to this, Ravana got shot in the leg, and as a result, Ravana got re-translocated to Lunugamvehera NP. Again, Ravana raided crops on leased land in the park, and a few months later, Ravana got shot in the jaw and had an agonising death after suffering for a few days.
Another tragic event happened when a young bull elephant named Homey that frequently foraged at a garbage dump in Hambantota got translocated to Yala NP Block II, which took a journey of 75 km. Within a few days, Homey was back at the garbage dump. Astonishingly, when data from the collar was downloaded, it was shown that the route Homey took to return contrasted with the route Homey was taken. For the second time, Homey was translocated to Udawalawe NP, but as time passed by, he created conflict with neighbouring villages. Subsequently, Homey left the park and again returned to the garbage dump. For the third time, Homey got translocated to Maduruoya NP, almost 300 km away from Hambantota. At times, Homey tried to come back to the garbage dump but was unsuccessful due to compact human settlements. So, he continued to stay at Maduruoya but started to create conflict with neighbouring villages. This resulted in him getting shot frequently. One day he got shot in the head and died in a paddy field.
Elephant Drives
Elephant drives involve chasing elephants from one area to another area, and for this, firecrackers or thunder flashes would be used. This procedure can take days to get completed. These drives had happened as early as the 1970s, and the latest to be 2024. From a scientific perspective, the decades of elephant drives that have been done are one of the key reasons for Sri Lanka having the highest level of HEC in the world. Records have clearly shown that after an elephant drive, some or all driven elephants returned. Also, in every location where elephant drives took place, HEC still persists. In many cases, the problem-causing males don’t get driven because those males usually avoid it. Instead, non-problem-causing female elephants get driven. In such incidents, after those driven elephants got enclosed in a restricted home range, those elephants did face starvation and malnourishment that eventually made them die. For this, there are examples coming from Lunugamvehera NP and Yala NP.
Removing the problem elephants
Removing problem elephants could be done in two ways: one is domestication and the other is culling. Such acts can enhance the risk for elephants’ extinction. Problem elephants are usually male elephants, and elephants that raid crops are risk takers. Emerging research shows that risk-taking behaviour contributes highly to their reproductive success. So, if such elephants are removed from the gene pool, it weakens the elephant population.
In modern days, there is a popular misconception that the elephant population has risen, and it is immoderate. In fact, scientifically, there is no way to explain whether the elephant population has risen or plummeted. Because the first legitimate elephant census was done in 2011. Before 2011, elephant population numbers were given as guesses or estimations. After 2011, last year an elephant census was done, but still the results haven’t been published. There are many who think that the elephant population has increased because, around the country, there are places where locals are newly experiencing HEC. This happened because of habitat loss and the blocking of elephant corridors that occurred due to poor development planning done by various governments. So, as a result of it, new places experience HEC.
Still, the Sri Lankan elephant is classified as “Endangered” by the IUCN Red List due to its high risk of extinction and declining population. Also, we must remember that though culling or capturing of elephants is not done, yet annually, in the last few years, over 350 elephants have died due to HEC. This is only the documented data, and the undocumented figure can give a higher value. A mother elephant usually gives birth to a single calf with a two-year gestation period. They have 4-5 years of interval until the next calf is born. Females become less fertile after 40 years. In Sri Lanka only 6,000 elephants are left. So, such a high mortality rate due to HEC is critical.
Biofencing and Geological Barriers

A victim of the human-elephant conflict
Palmyra Palm fencing: This involves planting palmyra trees (Borassus) as a fence to restrict elephants’ movements. Though it has some positive effects, practically there are problems to call it a solution. This project is expected to take a longer time to achieve its anticipated outcomes and could take even a decade. Even so, the germination rate is lower, and by any chance, if at least one tree fails to grow, the fence becomes ineffective.
Thorny plant fencing: Plants such as agave, cacti, and bougainvillaea had been used to deter elephants, but those had been unsuccessful because of elephants’ thick skin. Besides, elephants even feed on thorny plants such as Acacia eburnean that have sharp thorns that can grow up to 1 inch.
Beehive fencing: The fence is erected at chest height with beehives fixed to it and spaced every ten meters. This method had high success in deterring crop-raiding elephants in Africa. In addition, the produce from hives provided economic benefits to farmers. This project was introduced by Save the Elephants Organisation (SEO). From 2014-2019 SEO collaborated with the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society (SLWCS) to do a pilot project in Wasgamuwa. Unfortunately, results showed it was ineffective due to the reason that African honey bees (Apes mellifera scutellata) and Asian honey bees (Apes cerana indica) behaviour contrasts. Asian bees cannot scare away elephants, and those bees are not active at nighttime.
Trenches: Soil erosion had made trenches ineffective, and also the construction and maintenance cost is very expensive. According to past experiences, it had impeded wildlife movement, and a lot of other smaller animals had died after falling to them. Also, there is a potential of hydrological impacts that would have a negative effect on villages.
Effective methods
Before touching this topic, it is important to mention that the strategies put forward here are science-based projects, and these projects had been put into experiment as pilot projects with successful results. The villagers state that after the implementation of the project, HEC had been solved or mitigated. These projects had been done by the Centre for Conservation and Research and SLWCS.
According to research, it has been proved that the electric fence is the most effective to deter elephants. But it depends where the electric fence is erected. If it is erected in the boundary of a protected area, it can be ineffective, but instead, if it is erected at the border between elephant habitat and human-use areas, it can be successful. This is what is called community-based electric fencing and proved to be successful in mitigating HEC.
Another method is the paddy-field electric fences. These fences are installed seasonally. During cultivation the fences are installed, and during harvest the fence is removed and stored in their houses until the following crop season. So, during the fallow periods, elephants would forage the leftover harvest and other vegetation. By 2020, approximately 50 village electric fences and 25 paddy-field electric fences were active in the Kurunegala, Hambantota, Trincomalee, and Anuradhapura districts for up to 12 years. Feedback from the villagers is positive.
It needs to be mentioned that in 2020 a National Action Plan for the Mitigation of HEC was made by a committee of wildlife experts. Strategies included in the National Action Plan were chosen based on their demonstrated effectiveness, capacity to be executed on a suitable geographic and temporal scale, and cost-effectiveness. Stakeholder discussions were performed with the public and relevant agencies, and their feedback was integrated into the Action Plan as needed. So, if that action plan gets implemented, HEC could be mitigated!
Features
Congratulations…and celebrations

Twenty-one years in the news, in Toronto, Canada, and that certainly calls for big time celebrations!
Dirk Tissera, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Sri Lanka Anchorman, is working on making it a big scene.
He says the 21st Anniversary celebrations will take the form of a gala dinner dance, scheduled for Friday, 30th May, 2025, in Toronto, Canada, adding that there would be plenty of surprises!
In fact, The Sri Lankan Anchorman’s 20th Anniversary, ‘A Night To Remember,’ held on 31 May, 2024, at the J&J Convention Centre, in Toronto, turned out to a resounding success.
Dirk mentioned that last year’s event was sold out long before the scheduled date.
“We generally work on our anniversary celebrations months in advance to ensure that the audience got their monies worth, and there was plenty of variety in the music we provided last year, led by veteran singer, the legendary Fahmy Nazick, along with the band Déjà Vu, guest singer Cherry Deluna, and DJ Chami.
- Dirk and Michelle welcoming guests to The Sri Lankan Anchorman’s 20th Anniversary celebrations
- Fahmy Nazick
What is special about The Sri Lanka Anchorman, a tabloid newspaper, is its wide and varied content which Sri Lankan-Canadians eagerly look forward to reading.
In fact, Dirk Tissera received a top Toronto press award from the National Ethnic Press & Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) for excellence in editorial content and visual presentation.
An old boy of St. Mary’s College, Dehiwela, he had his early grooming, in journalism, right here, in Colombo, and then moved to Canada, and is now based in Toronto.
Dirk Tissera is efficiently supported by his wife Michelle in the publication of The Sri Lanka Anchorman.
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