Growing more food

Newspapers this weekend would be filled with the 60th anniversary of our independence and how we have fared so far. In this respect, a survey conducted by global research agency Nielsen exclusively for The Sunday Times (appearing in the news section) on independence issues provides some food for thought for our readers.

The survey says most of the respondents listed D.S. Senanayake as the best leader in Sri Lanka followed by Ranasinghe Premadasa and Mahinda Rajapaksa in third place. J.R. Jayawardene and S.W.R.D Bandaranaike followed after that while Chandrika Kumaratunga was allotted the eighth place. Many respondents predicted a bright future for Sri Lanka while 70 percent said they won’t migrant even if they had the chance.

While we mark yet another year after independence comes the news that the World Bank is suggesting that Sri Lanka should grow more food due to soaring world market prices, a complete reversal of its policies in the late 1990s when it recommended a shift from non-plantation crops!

‘Grow your own food or Grow more food” … was the slogan during Dudley Senanayake’s era as prime minister in the late 1960s and we seem to heading down that path now.

The bank’s World Development Report 2008 released this week says that net importers like Sri Lanka are likely to struggle against rising food costs. It says the increase in food prices is an opportunity for poor countries to increase agricultural production, because incomes from agricultural goods would be higher. This in turn, would increase incomes and help reduce poverty.

Now what did the bank profess more than 10 years ago in a report by experts Robert Hunt and Douglas Lister on "Non Plantation Sector Policy Alternatives Report"? “They then said Sri Lanka should move out of low value crops to export crops,” notes Sarath Fernando, a veteran defender of farmer’s rights and the farm economy, who has been battling the bank over its policies.

“We disagreed, saying farming should be made affordable, and the consumer charged a reasonable price. How? By resorting to organic farming and less use of costly fertilizer,” he said, adding that at current prices people cannot eat. “The cost of wheat flour is Rs 80 per kg and plantation workers, who use a lot of flour, are unable to have a decent meal as they get just Rs 200 a day as wages.”

The bank’s perceived turnaround in policy has been triggered by a sharp rise in food prices due to demand from bigger nations like China and India, and a larger share of the food production being grabbed for bio fuel output, particularly for US cars. It appears now that the precious food resource on this planet for humans is being grabbed by many other sources and at higher prices too.

In fact agriculture, World Bank or no World Bank, is coming a full circle and drawing the attention of many investors here – great for a sector that the private sector once frowned on. The problem of inefficiencies and cost are being tackled effectively by companies like CIC and Cargills. CIC has gone into agriculture, particularly rice production, in a big way and is churning out high quality, high yielding rice and other crops, some of which are to be exported to the United States. Cargills has come up with its own rice brand and aims to develop buffer stocks as a cushion against rising prices during seasonal dips in production and between harvests.

Economist Dr Harsha de Silva, in comments this week at a meeting of The Sunday Times Business Club, also believes the way forward is to develop agriculture by making farming efficient, attractive and land, marketable.

He says one of the problems why farming is unattractive and uneconomical is because farmers have tiny lots to cultivate and don’t own their land, if one is to expand. The current trend towards rising food prices would put further pressure on the authorities to increase rice yields and reduce wheat imports. As pro-farm campaigners like Sarath Fernando would say: For once the World Bank is on the side of the farmers, cajoling them to produce more!