No shortage of rice, assures Agriculture Minister
 

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Agriculture and Lands Minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake yesterday confirmed that there will not be any rice shortage in the market within the next few months.

In order to control the increase of rice prices in the local market and safeguard consumers, the Government through the Agriculture Ministry has made arrangements to store 60,000 metric tons of rice as buffer stocks during this Maha season. This buffer stock will be obtained from the 200,000 Mt. of paddy purchased by the Government during the Maha season.

"If the price of rice in the local market goes up rapidly, the Ministry will systematically release this rice stock to the open market to counterbalance the prices of rice in the market maintaining a concessionary price," Minister Dissanayake told the Daily News.

The Minister said that the experience in the past shows that even if a large amount of paddy was made locally, there was no systematic method to offer a good price to farmers for their paddy and also to provide rice to consumers to a fair price. Therefore the Government has taken steps to formulate a mechanism covering all three key areas of purchasing paddy, milling and marketing.

Meanwhile, the Treasury has released Rs. 1,265 million to purchase this year's Maha harvest, the largest ever amount reserved by any Government to purchase paddy from the farmers. The previous highest sum allocated to purchase the Maha paddy harvest was Rs. 487.70 million in 2003.

In addition to this sum released to the Multi Purpose Co-operative Societies and Agrarian Service Centres to purchase paddy, the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board has allocated Rs. 100 million to the Agrarian Service Centres for it's paddy purchasing.

Dissanayake said the Ministry has also laid emphasis on a mechanism to produce rice at regional level and establish 10 Rice Processing Centres at district level during this year.

The national level paddy purchasing program implemented by the Government to purchase the Maha paddy harvest is now being successfully conducted throughout the country. The Government, throughout its 1,223 paddy purchasing centres has already purchased over 65,000 metric tons of paddy from farmers, he said.

The Government purchases a kilo of `Samba' paddy at Rs. 16.50 and `a kilo of 'Nadu' paddy for Rs. 15.50. "This is one of the most progressive steps taken by the United People's Freedom Alliance Government to safeguard the farmer community by offering a maximum possible price for their harvest," he said.

" The previous highest Maha yield was 1.8 million metric tons in 2003. Compared with the previous Maha season, this year's Maha season has recorded a considerable increase in terms of yield. This year's Maha season has raised the yield from 80 bushels per acre to 130 bushels. Only Rs. 487 million had been allocated to purchase the 2003 Maha harvest. The average price of a Kilo of paddy from the previous Maha season was Rs. 13.50."

He said this year's Maha season saw the cultivation of 577,867 hectares of land while the country has recorded the biggest ever bumper Maha harvest with nearly 2 million metric tons of paddy this year.

The main reason being attributed to this record yield is the initiatives taken by the Government to cultivate a large number of abandoned paddy lands while providing the fertiliser subsidy to farmers by reducing their production cost, he said.

He said the Government for the first time has allocated Rs. 156 million to purchase Maha paddy harvest in the North-East including Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts. In addition, the Government has also reserved Rs. 44 million to purchase 100,000 bushels of seed paddy.