Sri Lankans consume less vegetables due to high costs
More and more Sri Lankans, are eating less vegetables due to its high cost which could trigger many health problems, according to recent research by a veteran agriculture entrepreneur. In some cases the price difference between the farmers selling price and that in Colombo markets is as high as 500-600 per cent.
This consumption pattern is contrary to trends in other parts of the world, particularly Asia, where vegetables are a key ingredient in the diets of people.
According to Anura Weerakoon, Chairman, National Agribusiness Council (NAC) and who has been in this trade for the last 25 years as the Chairman/Managing Director, Agro-Culture Trends (Pvt) Ltd who conducted the survey, there is a huge difference between the farm gate price and the consumer price.
Mr. Weerakoon was speaking at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, this week after a media briefing to announce the first ever Workshop on Agricultural Machinery to be held on March 10.
He said that Sri Lankans are the lowest vegetable eaters in the world. But people in countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, etc consume lots of vegetables and eating more and more vegetables would reduce the risk of developing non-communicable diseases, like diabetes, heart attacks and stroke.
He said that he made arrangements to conduct a survey through his field staff on 12 February to ascertain the price structure of the important vegetables in the market. Field staff reported from Dambulla, Nuwara Eliya, Welimada and Wellawaya giving the prices offered to the farmer on that day at the main vegetable wholesale markets.
He said that on the same day his Colombo based staff visited some key markets in and around the city and also two supermarkets and when compared the prices between the farm gate prices and the consumer prices, the outcome was startling.
The price escalation as for the consumer, he said varies from 110 per cent to a high of 1100 per cent (for round radish) in retail vegetable markets and in supermarkets the variance is 80 per cent to 560 per cent.
The important person in the food chain, Mr. Weerakoon said is the farmer who gets a raw deal. After toiling for months under difficult conditions facing the vagaries of the weather, the constant threat of pest and disease, capital constraints, etc, the farmer finally gets a pittance for his produce.
In Dambulla, he said, just outside the gate of the Economic Centre which is the heart of the vegetable distributing system at present, the retail prices have increased by as much as 30 per cent to 300 per cent.
He told the Business Times that the private sector engaged in input supply has contributed in a major way in increasing the productivity of the farmer. He said that they have done a lot for the agricultural productivity increase and noted that out of a whole lot of subsistence farmers around 15 years ago, 30 per cent among them have become stand-alone progressive farmers using modern technological inputs. Some farmers, he said now are using the Internet and mobile telephones.
He said the NAC which consists of more than 20 corporate entities together with other are working with more than 20,000 farmers including farmer groups.
His company, he said deals with seeds and they provide high yielding best quality seeds. Earlier farmers were getting only 4,000 kg of chillies per acre, but after using their seeds these farmers now yield 15,000 kg per acre.
He said for the price difference between the farms and the retail markets to narrow the NAC and other stakeholders should work together and establish the natural price mechanism to operate so that prices would automatically stabilize.