Virus and food
Wednesday 1st April, 2020
Whoever would have thought a microorganism would put the brakes on the seemingly unstoppable process of globalisation? All countries have walled themselves off and are now hermit kingdoms, just like North Korea, to all intents and purposes. They are frantically guarding their national borders to protect themselves against COVID-19. This kind of hysterical response to the threat is not without a tinge of xenophobia, which is frowned on by the civilised world.
With the world now in the quarantine mode, as it were, speculation is rife that there could be a shortage of some agricultural commodities, in this country, owing to lockdowns in India, etc. Given the huge local demand for food items, in India, which has about 1.3 billion people, restrictions are bound to be imposed on its agricultural exports. There was a shortage of big onions, here, a few weeks ago, due to a poor crop yield, in India. So the possibility of a shortage of food items, imported from India as well as other coronavirus-hit countries, sooner or later, cannot be ruled out. We can only hope that such a situation won’t come to pass.
It has become patently clear from the present crisis and the attendant problems that the local food production has to be increased substantially. Fortunately, wholesalers usually maintain buffer stocks of imported food items, in March and April, to meet the Avurudu demand. Had the country been hit by coronavirus after the traditional New Year, panic buying would have caused a severe food shortage. It is hoped that action will be taken to replenish food stocks urgently.
The problem with lessons learnt from crises is that they are soon forgotten, as we have argued in a previous column. A world grain shortage, in the early 1970s, jolted Sri Lanka into increasing its local food production to face the resultant food crisis. The then SLFP-led United Front (UF) government swung into action with revolutionary zeal. The people were encouraged to grow their own food as far as possible, and home gardening became the order of the day. However, the government unnecessarily resorted to extreme action, which hurt the public, who grew resentful. It chose to ignore the people’s suffering, and the arrogance of power became its undoing. The country benefited immensely from the national cultivation drive, which would have lessened our heavy dependency on food imports. Unfortunately, it did not find favour with the UNP government, which came into power in 1977, and adopted economic liberalisation and promoted imports. If the momentum of the campaign to increase local food production had been maintained, during the last four decades or so, perhaps the country wouldn’t have been so desperate for food imports, today.
We have seen several much-advertised cultivation drives, over the years, but all of them, launched by Heads of State, at colourful ceremonies which cost Citizen Silva an arm and a leg, withered on the vine for want of state assistance afterwards, and we are where we are; even kurakkan (finger millet) is imported to meet a shortfall in the supply thereof. Cheap imports have taken their toll on the local food production due to the short-sighted policies of successive governments. There have been instances where rice was imported shortly before the commencement of the harvesting season, here, so as to bring down the prices of rice and, thereby, enable big-time millers to purchase paddy at extremely low prices and hoard it. This kind of exploitation has caused many farmers to give up paddy cultivation, unable to recover even the cost of production. In the early noughties, some political pundits advocated that paddy fields, in the Western Province, be filled up and factories built thereon because it was cheaper to import rice than to produce it here. They were also responsible for bankrupting Sathosa in a bid to privatise it and pocket kickbacks.
It may be possible to make use of the current situation to promote home gardening while action is taken to meet the immediate needs of the people.
Wednesday 1st April, 2020
Whoever would have thought a microorganism would put the brakes on the seemingly unstoppable process of globalisation? All countries have walled themselves off and are now hermit kingdoms, just like North Korea, to all intents and purposes. They are frantically guarding their national borders to protect themselves against COVID-19. This kind of hysterical response to the threat is not without a tinge of xenophobia, which is frowned on by the civilised world.
With the world now in the quarantine mode, as it were, speculation is rife that there could be a shortage of some agricultural commodities, in this country, owing to lockdowns in India, etc. Given the huge local demand for food items, in India, which has about 1.3 billion people, restrictions are bound to be imposed on its agricultural exports. There was a shortage of big onions, here, a few weeks ago, due to a poor crop yield, in India. So the possibility of a shortage of food items, imported from India as well as other coronavirus-hit countries, sooner or later, cannot be ruled out. We can only hope that such a situation won’t come to pass.
It has become patently clear from the present crisis and the attendant problems that the local food production has to be increased substantially. Fortunately, wholesalers usually maintain buffer stocks of imported food items, in March and April, to meet the Avurudu demand. Had the country been hit by coronavirus after the traditional New Year, panic buying would have caused a severe food shortage. It is hoped that action will be taken to replenish food stocks urgently.
The problem with lessons learnt from crises is that they are soon forgotten, as we have argued in a previous column. A world grain shortage, in the early 1970s, jolted Sri Lanka into increasing its local food production to face the resultant food crisis. The then SLFP-led United Front (UF) government swung into action with revolutionary zeal. The people were encouraged to grow their own food as far as possible, and home gardening became the order of the day. However, the government unnecessarily resorted to extreme action, which hurt the public, who grew resentful. It chose to ignore the people’s suffering, and the arrogance of power became its undoing. The country benefited immensely from the national cultivation drive, which would have lessened our heavy dependency on food imports. Unfortunately, it did not find favour with the UNP government, which came into power in 1977, and adopted economic liberalisation and promoted imports. If the momentum of the campaign to increase local food production had been maintained, during the last four decades or so, perhaps the country wouldn’t have been so desperate for food imports, today.
We have seen several much-advertised cultivation drives, over the years, but all of them, launched by Heads of State, at colourful ceremonies which cost Citizen Silva an arm and a leg, withered on the vine for want of state assistance afterwards, and we are where we are; even kurakkan (finger millet) is imported to meet a shortfall in the supply thereof. Cheap imports have taken their toll on the local food production due to the short-sighted policies of successive governments. There have been instances where rice was imported shortly before the commencement of the harvesting season, here, so as to bring down the prices of rice and, thereby, enable big-time millers to purchase paddy at extremely low prices and hoard it. This kind of exploitation has caused many farmers to give up paddy cultivation, unable to recover even the cost of production. In the early noughties, some political pundits advocated that paddy fields, in the Western Province, be filled up and factories built thereon because it was cheaper to import rice than to produce it here. They were also responsible for bankrupting Sathosa in a bid to privatise it and pocket kickbacks.
It may be possible to make use of the current situation to promote home gardening while action is taken to meet the immediate needs of the people.
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