Food security in a post COVID-19 era
File picture of a vegetable stall
The demand for food of Sri Lanka is supplied through domestic production as well as imports. Although successive governments have pledged to achieve self-sufficiency in certain crop varieties, including rice, it is incontestable that Sri Lanka’s population is heavily reliant on imports to fulfil their dietary requirements, especially lentils.
In 2019 Sri Lanka was ranked 66 amongst 113 countries in the global food security index which indicates that food security has been an area which required improvement even prior to the pandemic. Amidst the strict preventive measures employed to control the spread of COVID-19 with great dedication by medical services, armed services and Police, both domestic production and imports have endured disturbances which seems unfavourable to the status of food security in the country.
Analysis of these disturbances and its impact on food insecurity warrants a close observation of the possible trends and outcomes in the short, medium and long term as well as will of Government to make the country self-sufficient and the grow more food campaign a success. Solutions to farmer problems highlighted day in and day out by media have to be solved as a matter of priority. Excuses by Government officials, grower to market shortcomings, low cost agriculture loans, crop insurance schemes, availability of best quality seeds have to be dealt with.
The important factor is cultivating a lesser area of land while improving quality and productivity should be concentrated on by the Ministry of Agriculture if they do have productive employees in the field, not pen pushers. Data on productivity, yield per acre of rice and other crops should be made public.
In the backdrop of the exponential growth of the world’s population and the changing patterns of consumption, undoubtedly the global demand for food will experience an upsurge in the near future. Such increase of demand coupled with other externalities such as limitations in production, soaring prices, mismanaged supply chains, declining nutritional value of crops and structural inequalities in access to food has disturbed the food security at national and international level. Despite the expansion of production capacities, through technological advancements, the developing world has been continuously struggling to handle situations of pervasive hunger and extreme poverty which shares a direct correlation with food security. Hence, while the nations are grappling with new challenges posed by COVID-19, the imminent threat to food security should not escape the attention of Governments and policy makers.
In Sri Lanka the immediate impact would be on the low-income households dependent on daily wages to fulfil their basic requirements. A family making less than Rs. 60,000 a month is at high risk. Suspension of several economic activities during curfew, low income households in both urban and rural areas have experienced major setbacks in their income, which has depreciated their ability to purchase essential food items.
Although a decline in the supply of food items was not identified in the market, deficient financial capacity of low-income households has caused significant obstructions to their access to food in sufficient quality and quantity. Thanks to Jack Fruit, Bread Fruit, Tapioka, Sweet Potato growing in abundance, death due to starvation was avoided. At the outset, several measures have been taken by the Government and private sector, including concessionary prices for certain essential food items and donations to vulnerable households to sustain themselves during the lockdown. Such immediate relief to those who were unable to fulfil their day-to-day requirements was an absolute necessity. In the long run, these provisions are nothing but merely a makeshift approach as opposed to a more sustainable solution .
While an immediate decline in supply is not anticipated, given the interruptions caused to market activities and supply chains, limitations to accessibility of food items is expected in the intermediate term. With the interruptions caused to economic activities in several critical nodes of the market, such as at Dedicated Economic Centres, the traditional channels have been dysfunctional causing inefficiencies in distribution.
Consequently, massive oversupplies were observed in many areas where farmers claimed that they were left with no option but to throw away their unsold produce. As stated previously, the Government had made efforts to purchase the unsaleable produce from farmers and distribute them through state channels to consumers. While home delivery of essentials was required given the circumstances, this approach had its fair share of challenges posed by geographical proximity, observance of hygienic practices and limited consumer choice compared to the situations which prevailed earlier .
Due to the cessation of market activities producers will be discouraged to produce in quantities they previously cultivated in fear of not being able to secure reasonable prices as well as low cost finance support from banks.
Moreover, their production capacities will also deteriorate as they struggle to purchase agricultural inputs such as fertilizer for crops and animal feed for livestock with their low income earned in the previous season.
These irregularities will eventually reflect in the production quantities, which will inevitably reduce the domestic production in the long run. Decline in domestic production would naturally call for increase of imports to ensure food items are available in sufficient quantity in the markets. Yet, given the pressures induced by COVID-19, unprecedented escalation of food prices is expected globally which result in increase of expenditure on imports necessary for domestic consumption.
Imminent threats to food security, should take into account two underlying principles, namely, minimising damage and building resilience. Any response with this regard should firstly, focus on preventing the worsening conditions and preserving the status quo and secondly how to improve the prevailing situations and ensure resilience of communities to challenges which may follow in future .
Amongst other measures to be taken, reasonable interventions should be made to regulate market activities in order to discourage unfavourable trends like middlemen. Particularly, a strong stance by Government is recommended to avoid fictitious shortages caused by millers and “panic buying”.
Parallel to the relief mechanisms Sri Lanka should invest more on planning for post-COVID-19 recovery measures especially targeting the low-income households which have suffered severe economic setbacks .
Opportunities should be created for low-income households to either resume their previous methods of income generation or to shift to alternative livelihoods. Attention should be paid to develop strategies to efficiently manage national food reserves, which is of utmost importance in the backdrop of a pandemic. The process of management of food reserves should be transparent and handled by an institution with a clear mandate which will be directly accountable to ensure its efficient administration. Last but not least, incentives should be provided for producers to continue their cultivations, until they are able to recover from the shocks experienced during the suspension of market activities due to COVID-19.
Monitoring by Government in production and maintenance of supply chains is an important aspect of food security as seen during the lockdown period. Supermarket chains that claim to serve people from farmer to market was a failure due to unknown reasons as well as lack of cold room facilities and thus better transport facilities have to be introduced to maintain prices.
It is claimed that 30 – 40 per cent of fresh produce go waste due to lack of cold rooms and intelligent transport practices. As per statistics some 35 per cent of the population is involved in food production. Their contribution to the economy is less than 6 per cent.
In the developed world farmers are rich. In this country farmers will be eternally poor due to mismanagement by politicians and officials of the respective ministries. One of the biggest mismatches and lack of coordination is between Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Irrigation. They seem to be clueless in the use of technology.
All the 225 parliamentarians must be made answerable to some 5.5 million households to solve the food production of each district to fulfill the vision of the Government for the country to be self-sufficient in food. (The writer is a senior corporate business leader).