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| Friday, 12 March 2004 |
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Food policy, food security and paddy farming
It is essential to note that in all these declarations and agreements, the need for the expansion and the strengthening of the domestic food production in a sustainable manner by all food deficit countries has been emphasized as the top most priority to be attended to by the respective Governments. Being a food deficit country these recommendations are applicable to Sri Lanka as well. Furthermore, it has been strongly urged that each country should have a deliberate food policy, having in focus the vulnerable groups in regard to the supply aspect and the small farmers in regard to the production aspect, including employment for them. These are essential guidelines for domestic policy formulation in regard to food security. It could be very clearly seen that in Sri Lanka the paddy sector has a very vital role to play in the context of internationally sponsored declarations, policies and strategies. In relation to food security some argue that domestic food requirements can be procured in the market, through international trade and therefore there is no need to bother about domestic production of paddy, which is a low value crop. However, in countries which depend on food imports there are strong concerns that future prospects of food supplies through trade are not very promising and there is no guarantee that free trade will lead to stabilization of food supplies and prices, to suit individual country needs. These considerations have led to decisions by some of those countries to formulate their own food policies. The most appropriate solution for each country in regard to food security varies according to its specific conditions and situations and cannot be met by relying too heavily on trade. Therefore, it has been generally accepted that the means for a Government to secure food security are a combination of domestic production, importation and stockholding. Imports would contribute to reduce the risk of a poor domestic harvest. There is always a risk of import interruption. Domestic production serves as an insurance against those risks associated with imports, but also has its own risk of unstable production mainly due to the failure of good weather conditions. Stockholding is an effective measure to face such situations. The optimum combination of the above three means is essential in order to attain food security effectively and at least cost. Efforts at maintaining self sufficiency in the staple food - rice, as a means of ensuring food security appears to be too demanding on the carrying capacity of the fragile natural resource base. Soil fatigue and diminishing water availability are the critical issues. Furthermore, when all efforts are directed towards maintaining an excessively high level of production, the vulnerability to the risk of crop damage due to variabilities in weather conditions also increases. It destabilizes the market which is harmful mainly to the paddy producer. Therefore, the Study Group recommends that a stable level of production which suits the carrying capacity of the natural resource base should be maintained to obtain the optimum benefits. According to the available information on the annual production of paddy for the last several years keeping the production within the range of 80% - 90% of the national consumption requirement could be recommended as stable under present conditions. Agriculture dependent on foreign markets often fails to serve two important needs; i.e., food security & sustainability. Plantation type agriculture in some African countries dependent on foreign markets and the tea plantations in Sri Lanka provide good examples of dualism causing economic and social disparities within the sector as well. Rural and plantation people in some of these countries have faced severe shortages of food when the prices in the export market were low or when good weather failed. Due to inadequate development of infrastructure such as irrigation systems essential for domestic food production the rural poor become extremely vulnerable during periods of drought and face hunger. It has been observed that people in tea plantations in Sri Lanka are more vulnerable in situations of food shortages than the rural people because, plantation people unlike the rural people are mostly dependent on the market for their food supplies. Problems of the smallholder in paddy farming With all the beneficial contributions made for the well-being of the country as explained above, most of the paddy farmers who cultivate small holdings however remain in abject poverty and find it difficult to face the challenges that are fast emerging in the domestic as well as in the international economic environment. With the continuing population growth and the fixed land base, small farms are getting smaller. Miniaturization is a reality and they eventually become too small to be economically efficient. With increasing supplies to the world rice market, resulting from big South Asian Countries increasing their production and with trade liberalization, the small farmers will find it difficult to compete with cheap imported rice in the domestic market. Some of the small farmers may continue in production to satisfy household requirements. But how they are going to rise beyond subsistence level and above poverty level and increase their incomes to stay afloat economically in the modern globalized world is indeed a problem. It has been mentioned that for a household to be above the poverty line an extent over 2.03 hectares of paddy land has to be cultivated in both seasons, if the only source of household income is paddy farming. But around 94.4% of the holdings are less than 2.5 hectares in extent. Although there has been a marked increase in productivity during the last decade to have reached the national average of 4.00 mt. per hectare per season, it has not benefited the farmers cultivating small holdings, as the gross return from the miniaturized paddy holdings is too small to make a positive impact on the household income. The smallness of the holding makes the unit cost of production also relatively high, thereby making paddy farming not remunerative. In grain production building large volumes is an essential requirement to be competitive. This, the paddy smallholders are unable to do. The marketable surpluses produced by the farmers who cultivate relatively larger extends also, do not produce appreciable quantities. Small marketable quantities increase collection/marketing costs and are very debilitating in developing an efficient marketing network with adequate investments in the development of marketing infrastructure. Forward and backward linkages in the marketing chain will be very weak due to the very small marketable surplus available. Miniaturization of holdings is a serious problem for profitable production as well as marketing. These problems are compounded by the increasing cost of inputs at the farm level due to structural adjustment programmes that are designed to remove subsidies. In the market place if there is a shortage, the trader gets the benefit through big margins rather than the small farmers. If there is a glut, the price will drop and the small farmers will be in difficulty, because, they cannot hold on to the stocks and have to sell their produce, at very low prices, as there is no one to give the farmer any price support. Formal lending institutions do not consider farmers having small paddy holdings creditworthy, to provide institutional credit. Therefore, they are dependent on village level money lenders to obtain credit for farming as well as for their other needs at very high rates of interest. Distraction of the youth from paddy farming All these constraints contribute to make paddy farming less attractive to the majority of the youth even in rural areas. Their orientation due to education, inclinations and other socio-economic and socio-cultural pressures, compel them to look elsewhere other than paddy farming, to fulfill their aspirations. Therefore, it is only the ageing and less educated operators who remain in the paddy sector, due to lack of other opportunities. Gradually the ageing population will leave paddy cultivation creating a serious labour shortage in the paddy sector. It will leave increasing extends of paddy fields uncultivated and abandoned. The solution to the problem of labour shortage is mechanization. That too is not possible as the holdings are too small, to make it technically feasible, attractive for capital investment in the form of mechanization, and above all, economically viable. They all pose serious problems to paddy farming. As explained in the above paragraphs the root cause for most of the problems in paddy farming can be traced to the smallness or miniaturization of the paddy holdings in almost all parts of the country; in other words the loss of economies of scale. Therefore, the consolidation of smallholdings to form economically viable larger paddy holdings is the solution on which, the profitability and the sustainability of paddy farming will depend, in the future. None of the other problems in the paddy sector can be solved in a durable manner without consolidating small paddy holdings to form larger economically viable units. (Courtesy: 'Profitability and Sustainability of Rice Production in Sri Lanka', published by the Office of the Advisor on Sustainable Development and Chairman of the Inter Ministerial Committee on Food Security). |
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Produced by Lake House |
At all international conferences and summit meetings on food security,
declarations have been made and agreements have been reached on the steps,
the food deficit countries with large percentage of the population
experiencing hunger, food shortages and malnutrition should take in order
to eliminate these problems.
