Cruel irony in the former Granary of the East

• Ultimately, the government had to import rice, going against their own promise never to import rice

The rice/paddy issue has again come to the fore with those TV channels connected to the Opposition   unceasingly telecasting demonstrations by famers in various areas in the country making various demands. 

One day,  they show paddy farmers agitating for fertiliser  at concessionary prices while  demanding on another day higher prices for their product – paddy. They also demand the Paddy marketing Board (PNB) to purchase their paddy, blaming the rice mill owners for lowering  paddy prices to an unaffordable level. 

Agriculture Minister K.D.Lalkantha argued that the current paddy marketing issue is not something that affects the farmers as they have already sold their paddy to the traders who are now struggling to sell it in turn to the PMB. He said PMB cannot solve the problems faced by  traders as it is meant to solve farmers’  problems   and not of traders. The government is of the view that higher prices for paddy means higher prices for rice which affects the consumer.  

This situation is totally different from what prevailed last year. Some farmers’ organisations stated last year that not even a single grain of paddy would be sold to the PMB which purchases paddy at Rs. 130 per kilo, the government’s certified price,  while private traders pay them Rs. 170 per kilo. But today some people, whether they are farmers or traders, wants to sell their produce to the PMB.

Meanwhile, Opposition parties, many of which are former ruling parties, have taken conflicting stands in respect of paddy and rice prices. While supporting the demand by  farmers for Rs. 150 for a kilo of paddy, they blame the government for rising rice prices. What they forget or pretend not to know is that,  since the paddy-to-rice ratio is 5:3 according to the Agriculture Ministry, increasing the paddy price to Rs. 150 would shoot up the rice price to Rs. 270 at the very least, including the profit margin and other overheads.

Despite the demonstration by  farmer organisations and  criticism by the Opposition -- largely seen as politically motivated --  the government has to accept  that the first major issue the National People’s Power (NPP) government faced was a huge shortage of rice in the market. It was the daily Mirror that broke the story during the first week of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s tenue, when  the controlled price for rice had to be raised from Rs. 120 to Rs. 130, believing that  large-scale mill owners were hoarding paddy and rice. Ultimately, the government had to import rice, going against their own promise never to import rice.

First the government stated that the major obstacle to solving the rice issue was the absence of data on paddy cultivation and rice market, which is logical; thus,  officials were instructed to prepare a data base. It is not clear whether this data base is  now in the making. Then, authorities took steps to resuscitate the PMB, renovating the abandoned PMB warehouses arguing that  state intervention in the market would help solve the issue. However, the processing methods in the large-scale mills is far ahead of the PMB related small and medium-level mills, persuading the farmers in most cases to bypass the PMB warehouses. 

In fact, the paddy/rice conundrum has become a cruel irony in a country that was once called the granary of the east.

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