Programme to promote rice flour based products

A programme to encourage and promote rice flour based bakery products was launched to minimize any adverse impact caused to bakery owners as a result of people getting accustomed to consume more rice instead of wheat flour based bakery products, Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa said.

The Minister said so at an awareness workshop on the production of rice flour based products for bakery owners held at the Green Garden Hotel, Gampaha on October 25.

The workshop was part of a countrywide programme organized by the ministry’s self-employment promotion unit under the theme Suva Diviyak – Isurumath Hetak.

Minister Rajapaksa said that when the Portuguese invaders conquered the maritime provinces, the indigenous people who were alien to Portuguese customs and traditions reported to the king that ‘people eating limestone and drinking blood’ had come to their areas. By limestone they meant bread and by blood they meant wine.

This showed that ancient people disliked wheat flour based products. But later when the use of wheat flour began, paddy cultivation had been disrupted forcing the country to import 48 percent of its rice requirements.

This in essence was the situation which prevailed in the country when President Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed office. But the President changed this scenario by providing the fertilizer subsidy to farmers and liberating areas held by the LTTE and recommencing paddy cultivation in them to increase rice production.

This is why the country could do without importing a single grain of rice even when vast tracts of paddy lands in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Ampara districts were destroyed in the recent floods. “Since we had enough rice stocks in our storerooms we were able to prepare food items like ‘hoppers’ and ‘pittu’ using rice flour. Therefore bakery owners who provided strength to the country’s economy should promote rice flour based products.