Sri Lanka grows home solution to grain prices
By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO - Drastically lowered wheat consumption in Sri Lanka - once running
close to that of the domestically grown staple rice - has been welcomed by food
security experts as the only way to beat the present increases in global grain
prices.
President Mahinda Rajapakse is among those who have publicly welcomed the
reversal in the dietary habits of Sri Lankans and the return to rice and
pulses.
"I am exceedingly glad at the fall in consumption of wheat-flour based
products. Despite the fact that we possess very fertile
lands, the consumption of [imported] wheat was forced upon us, initially by the
provision of wheat free of charge, and later on credit, until we were addicted
to it," the president told a meeting of his nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party
this month.
On Friday, the Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) listed Sri
Lanka among 14 countries facing "food emergencies" due to rising prices.
Asian countries in the FAO list included Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the
Philippines, Tajikistan and Armenia, while Ivory Coast, Senegal, Nigeria,
Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique figured under Africa.
Sri Lanka has raised tariffs on imported grain and issued appeals to rice
exporters such as Indian and Vietnam for increased supplies of rice.
While neighboring India has imposed restrictions on the export of rice to fight
inflationary trends at home, it has heeded Colombo's appeals and agreed to ship
100,000 tonnes of rice to help Sri Lanka tide over shortages.
Nimal Sanderatne, a Sri Lankan economist and expert on agriculture issues, said
the trend for many years has been towards substitution of rice with wheat in
rice-eating as well as rice-producing countries, mostly because it was cheaper.
So what are people eating if one segment of their diet has been reduced?
"Either they are doing away with a meal or eating some substitute," believes
Sarath Fernando, a veteran campaigner for small farmer issues.
Fernando says the high cost of both rice and wheat flour in recent months has
been exacerbated by sharply rising fuel costs, which has and led to
across-the-board price rises and annual inflation rates of over 20%.
While the government has put the blame on international fuel prices and
external shocks for rising inflation, the International Monetary Fund in a
report issued earlier in the month said inflationary trends were more likely to
be "domestic in nature" and possibly the result of mismanagement.
Some unofficial figures show that consumption of bread and wheat-based products
has fallen by as much as 40%, though government officials are unable to confirm
these figures. Wheat grain imports have been hovering around 80,000 metric
tonnes per month in recent months, compared with around 120,000 metric tonnes a
month about five years ago.
The rising cost of imports, a sizable budget deficit and weakening balance of
payments, plus less in the way of concessionary loans from multilateral donor
agencies caused the government to launch a "grow more food" campaign in
September.
The National Campaign to Motivate Domestic Food Production 2007-2010, under the
theme "Let's grow and build a Nation" launched by Rajapakse is aimed at a shift
in food habits and cutting the food import bill, which stood at more than 100
billion rupees (US$1 billion) annually.
Sri Lanka, once considered the granary of the East, has shown that it could
attain self sufficiency in food under similar campaigns launched by previous
governments. "Unfortunately, in the recent past, we have distanced ourselves
from local food cultivation and intensely depended on food imports. We have
still not settled the debts obtained to purchase wheat flour in the 1970s in
the process," Rajapkse said at the September launch.
Sri Lanka was a recipient of wheat flour under the US government's Public Law
480 scheme in the 1970s, permitting countries to purchase flour and pay in
local currencies.
One of the biggest critics of this scheme was the then finance minister N M
Perera, who said that at the rate the US government was earning Sri Lankan
rupees the country would be in deep debt to the Americans.
Wheat grain is now imported from Australia and other cheaper global sources by
Prima Ltd, a Singapore-based miller with a plant in Sri Lanka, whose sole
source till about five years ago was the US. Prima has its first competitor in
a Dubai-based miller who has vowed that when its Colombo plant starts operating
in May wheat flour prices are bound to fall.
Efforts to increase rice consumption and reduce that of wheat flour have been
underway for the past five years and there have been attempts at producing
bread and other popular food items such as pastries using rice flour.
A government statement in September said the intention of the "grow more food"
campaign was to eventually stop food imports, which were draining foreign
exchange reserves gained from tea and garment exports, and migrant worker
remittances.
Sirimal Abeyeratne, an economist at the University of Colombo, said Sri Lanka
is not the only country where food habits have been changing and pointed to
trends in Europe where rice is now increasingly being consumed. "This is part
of globalization," he said.
Campaigner Fernando welcomes the state policy of raising domestic food
production and cutting imports but questions its "shortsightedness". "The
government should have a proper policy of improving domestic production. In
this case, they are trying to solve a problem as a response to insufficient
money to import food," he said.
Under the campaign, the government hopes to create 4 million home gardens in
the next few years and build food stocks. It is exercising the right to hand
over unutilized land to willing tenants who will pay the owner a small fee for
the use of their land.
Economist Sanderatne sees benefits in the shift to more rice consumption,
saying that the wheat flour consumed by Sri Lankans has far less nutritional
value than rice. "What we get is different from other flour as over 70% of the
wheat extract [which has most of the nutrients] is exported," he said.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
