Food drive a national need
THE Government’s national food
production drive launched by President Mahinda Rajapaksa
yesterday takes us back to many decades when similar campaigns
to promote locally grown food crops were undertaken by all
regimes.
There was the famous ‘grow more food drive’ by Prime Minister
Dudley Senanayake which encouraged people to set up home
gardens.
Premier Senanayake to whom agriculture was a topic closest to
his heart went to great lengths to popularise the home garden
concept with media campaigns to inculcate in the minds of the
people the importance of growing their own food.
The Bandaranaike regime that followed too took forward this
campaign to greater heights necessitated by the closed economy
that was followed and the import restrictions that called for
stepped up local food production.
How far these campaigns succeeded is anybody’s guess but
judging by the enormous import bill on agricultural items that
could be locally grown it is reasonable to assume that these
food production drives had failed to have any impact.
Hence it is necessary for the Government to take stock of the
situation and draw out a systematic plan to make this endeavour
a success.
Examples in this regard could be borrowed from countries such
as China and Japan which though essentially industrialised
countries have given pride of place to the agricultural sector.
True, the open economy and liberalisation may have relegated
agriculture to the fringes and rendered the home garden concept
redundant with imports flooding the market. In addition the
imported variety is also cheaper and the prevailing rat race may
not lend itself to such leisurely pursuits such as home
gardening.
But we should heed the advice of scientists and agricultural
experts the world over who have warned of an impending global
food crisis and famine with a drastic depletion of the world’s
agricultural resources.
There is therefore an urgent need for a wake up call to our
people who have hitherto taken our Earth’s bounties for granted.
It is in this context that the Government’s national food
production drives assumes greater importance in addition to the
concern on the loss of valuable foreign exchange on imports.
The chief problem faced by the Government in this endeavour
no doubt is the lack of space, with giant modernisation and
burgeoning construction activities over the years swallowing up
most of our available land space.
Hence it is time that the Government starts making use of all
idle state land in pursuit of its food production drive.
Strict instructions should be issued to halt the filling of
all paddy lands while an incentive scheme should be contemplated
to encourage more home garden projects.
The decision taken by the Government to devise legal measures
to vest private land which have not been utilised over a long
period too is a move in the right direction.
Above all what is required is to motivate our people to take
up agricultural pursuits which are today even shunned by the
children of farmers’ offspring.
While the home garden concept should be given an impetus the
Government should also strive to improve the lot of the
traditional farmer who feeds the nation, in the form of more
incentives and concessions. |