Building economic self-sufficiency
Monday 06th April, 2020
Monday 06th April, 2020
The announcement of the ‘Saubhagya’ (Prosperity) cultivation programme by the Government indicates that, even as it responds to the medical challenge of COVID-19, it is also proceeding with its basic economic development programme. The ‘Saubhagya National Programme on Harvesting and Cultivation’, that will be formally launched this week, aims at a food import substitution programme with mass popular participation.
As our economy falters under the shock of a global pandemic with normal life and economic activity suddenly and hugely disrupted, the new Saubhagya programme is timely. While whole other sectors of manufacturing and agricultural production will need boosting and even re-structuring for the economy to recover from this battering, any additional food production will help reduce our import bill.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the Government faces the long term challenge of meeting import needs with severely shrunken buying power.
By last evening the number of COVID-19 infected people had risen to more than 170. The actual number of people infected cannot be easily known because only a small number of people have been tested given that the authorities are still busy procuring as many test kits as possible to detect this strange new disease.
Nevertheless, the rapid moves to counter the pandemic has seen the substantial suspension of normal economic life and the consequent downturn in production and earnings is expected to worsen over the next few weeks. Estimates are still being done about the exact economic and social impact but already preparations need to be made to meet the anticipated challenges.
With reduced export earnings, the country’s buying power on the international market is slashed. Even the shock of the Easter Sunday bombings was surprisingly short with the country’s lucrative tourism sector reviving in months, offering the prospect of full recovery in a year. However, COVID-19 has put an end to those happy prospects, at least for this year, if not for longer.
Thus, alternative action is crucial and Saubhagya is certainly a step in the direction of offsetting anticipated economic losses.
In a world of deficit economics on a massive scale, national business models are conceived of and function as veritable cogs in the complex machine of a highly integrated and inter-dependent global economy. Irrespective of each country’s direct experience of the COVID-19 epidemic, the economic impact has affected all nations. The collapse of markets means the debilitation of production systems. The decline of incomes means the collapse of demand.
At the same time, the emerging huge new medical equipment and resource needs means that production systems are being distorted as manufacturers are diverted from normal production to the production of required medical equipment. The country’s garments export industry, the pride of our economic ‘take-off’ that has brought us middle-income-country status, is today busy producing face masks of different types, among other badly needed medical goods, to meet urgent needs to battle the pandemic.
All this is a severe dislocation of our national economy and we, citizens, as we watch the Government, medical workers and health administrators (with the able support of essential services sectors and Security Forces) battle COVID-19, we must also now prepare to hunker down to the forthcoming economic struggle to try to protect our national economic achievements so far and conserve as much of our way of life as we can.
There can be no doubt that the more we can make things for ourselves within our own country, the more foreign exchange we will save for other imports that will meet economic re-building needs.
No doubt, the world’s financial situation will be such that some of our imports could become luxuries that we, in not-so-rich Sri Lanka, will not be able to afford for some time to come. Because of our relative affluence compared with less developed countries in our region, our deprivations may not be as severe as theirs.
Saubhagya will be one way in which, if we genuinely get down to work, we will achieve post-pandemic recovery.
Readers will recall a similar food imports substitution programme launched by the 1970-77 coalition regime of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Then, too, citizens in towns and villages were called on to grow their own food items.
‘Home gardening’ was the model at that time, and is also the model today, of supplementing the food agri-business sector in order to reduce our dependence on food imports.
Under the Saubhagya programme, the Ministry of Irrigation, Mahaweli Development, and Agriculture is offering packets of seeds at Rs. 20 per pack to encourage people with their own gardens to cultivate foods of their choice.
In the 1970s, it was the challenge of overcoming our poverty as a small low-income developing nation. Today, as an emerging middle-income-country, we face the challenge of recovering from the economic devastation of a pandemic. Just as we successfully met the challenge of the 1970s, we must all contribute our labour and ingenuity in meeting the challenge of COVID-19.
As our economy falters under the shock of a global pandemic with normal life and economic activity suddenly and hugely disrupted, the new Saubhagya programme is timely. While whole other sectors of manufacturing and agricultural production will need boosting and even re-structuring for the economy to recover from this battering, any additional food production will help reduce our import bill.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the Government faces the long term challenge of meeting import needs with severely shrunken buying power.
By last evening the number of COVID-19 infected people had risen to more than 170. The actual number of people infected cannot be easily known because only a small number of people have been tested given that the authorities are still busy procuring as many test kits as possible to detect this strange new disease.
Nevertheless, the rapid moves to counter the pandemic has seen the substantial suspension of normal economic life and the consequent downturn in production and earnings is expected to worsen over the next few weeks. Estimates are still being done about the exact economic and social impact but already preparations need to be made to meet the anticipated challenges.
With reduced export earnings, the country’s buying power on the international market is slashed. Even the shock of the Easter Sunday bombings was surprisingly short with the country’s lucrative tourism sector reviving in months, offering the prospect of full recovery in a year. However, COVID-19 has put an end to those happy prospects, at least for this year, if not for longer.
Thus, alternative action is crucial and Saubhagya is certainly a step in the direction of offsetting anticipated economic losses.
In a world of deficit economics on a massive scale, national business models are conceived of and function as veritable cogs in the complex machine of a highly integrated and inter-dependent global economy. Irrespective of each country’s direct experience of the COVID-19 epidemic, the economic impact has affected all nations. The collapse of markets means the debilitation of production systems. The decline of incomes means the collapse of demand.
At the same time, the emerging huge new medical equipment and resource needs means that production systems are being distorted as manufacturers are diverted from normal production to the production of required medical equipment. The country’s garments export industry, the pride of our economic ‘take-off’ that has brought us middle-income-country status, is today busy producing face masks of different types, among other badly needed medical goods, to meet urgent needs to battle the pandemic.
All this is a severe dislocation of our national economy and we, citizens, as we watch the Government, medical workers and health administrators (with the able support of essential services sectors and Security Forces) battle COVID-19, we must also now prepare to hunker down to the forthcoming economic struggle to try to protect our national economic achievements so far and conserve as much of our way of life as we can.
There can be no doubt that the more we can make things for ourselves within our own country, the more foreign exchange we will save for other imports that will meet economic re-building needs.
No doubt, the world’s financial situation will be such that some of our imports could become luxuries that we, in not-so-rich Sri Lanka, will not be able to afford for some time to come. Because of our relative affluence compared with less developed countries in our region, our deprivations may not be as severe as theirs.
Saubhagya will be one way in which, if we genuinely get down to work, we will achieve post-pandemic recovery.
Readers will recall a similar food imports substitution programme launched by the 1970-77 coalition regime of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Then, too, citizens in towns and villages were called on to grow their own food items.
‘Home gardening’ was the model at that time, and is also the model today, of supplementing the food agri-business sector in order to reduce our dependence on food imports.
Under the Saubhagya programme, the Ministry of Irrigation, Mahaweli Development, and Agriculture is offering packets of seeds at Rs. 20 per pack to encourage people with their own gardens to cultivate foods of their choice.
In the 1970s, it was the challenge of overcoming our poverty as a small low-income developing nation. Today, as an emerging middle-income-country, we face the challenge of recovering from the economic devastation of a pandemic. Just as we successfully met the challenge of the 1970s, we must all contribute our labour and ingenuity in meeting the challenge of COVID-19.
