Divineguma as a way of life – Director, Divineguma Jayatilleke Herath

Part 1:

A prosperous village with healthy and economically empowered families’ is the vision of the Divineguma National Programme. In Mahinda Chinthanaya – Vision for the Future, President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that he will establish resourceful and prosperous villages by 2016 through social and livelihood development. In his budget speech, President Rajapaksa stated that our society should be prepared to face the potential global food shortage in the near future.

Proper food supply can be ensured through animal husbandry, poultry farming, vegetable and food cultivation. All of these can be done within the household by using low cost organic fertilizer and inputs.

Therefore, he proposed a National Food Production Programme through establishment of one million household economic units with the help of Department of Agriculture and Samurdhi Programme, Divineguma National Programme Director Jayatilleke Herath said.

In an interview with the Daily News Herath said the mission of the Divineguma National Programme is establishing 2.5 million household economic units covering all villages, including sectors like home gardens, animal husbandry and cottage industries. Earlier, it was planned to establish one million household economic units but after observing the strong positive feedback and public enthusiasm, the Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa decided to increase this figure to 1.5 million.

Household economic unit

This programme has given an excellent message to the Sri Lankan public. That is if we were able to defeat the most ruthless terror outfit in the world, now, we have a more powerful and much bigger force to defeat - poverty.

Household economic units need to be established, because the unhealthy aspects of lifestyle which penetrated into the country through the open economy introduced in 1977. It had a negative impact on the health and nutrition of the people of Sri Lanka. There was a drastic negative change in the food and consumption habits of family units due to the transformation in the country’s social, economic and cultural structures, which occurred during the last few decades. Child malnutrition went up rapidly as a result of these changes.

He also pointed out that in the past, food items, such as, leafy vegetables, yams, root crops, cereals, medicines and small scale cottage industries were there in the household economic unit based on the materials obtained from the home garden and its vicinity.

Livestock had an important place in the household since ancient times. Eggs and dairy milk were produced with low cost and the fertilizer requirement for cultivation was also met. Economic and nutritional problems have intensified due to non use of family labour and resources obtained from the vicinity of the household. The Cost of Living has increased due to people purchasing food items from the market at higher prices, when these items could be grown in one’s home gardens.

Explaining the objectives of Divineguma National Programme, he said the main purpose of Divineguma is to get the family unit involved creating a healthy and nutritious household economic unit by making best use of the available opportunities and potential. Divineguma will be implemented under three main sectors.

They are agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry and cottage industry. There are four specific objectives of the programme. They are improving the nutrition level of the family, reducing the daily cost of living of the family, ensuring family food security and creating an additional source of income for the family.

On the other hand, people throughout the country experienced a massive development drive after the end of the humanitarian operation. Giant development projects, such as, expressways, power generating projects, airports, harbours etc are being constructed in the country. But people did not feel the real impact of development because these major development projects improved the country’s infrastructure facilities and not the day-to-day life requirements of the people. This is where the Divineguma came into play by addressing the people’s daily needs, while making a significant contribution towards the National economy. The Divineguma programme has won the hearts and minds of the people, hence, it is welcomed with open arms. The people recognise the fact that Divineguma is a boon to their well being.

National economy

In the past we had many poverty alleviation programmes such as rice coupon (ration), Janasaviya, Samurdhi, etc. They were not failures, but could be described as social welfare programmes. But, do we need to walk the same path forever? Can we do it? In 2002, the poverty index of the country was 22.7 per cent. Today it is only 8.9 per cent. But on the other hand, under-weight child births have increased up to 16 per cent. Over 20 per cent of school children suffer from malnutrition. This is the contradiction. This could not have happened if these poverty alleviation programmes were a success. This is the result of negative changes of lifestyle. But Divineguma put a stop to this trend, he pointed out.

Presenting statistics, he explained that in 2011 Rs. 173,277 million (1567m USD) were spent on importing food. In 2010, we spent Rs. 29,214 million for importing milk powder. This figure exceeded Rs. 38,000 million by 2011. We spent Rs.9,475 million to import onions in 2011. Another Rs.16,276 million was spent on importing canned fish. We can save all this money through Divineguma programme.

The importance of the Divineguma National programme is its contribution towards the national economy. Every single household economic unit makes a significant contribution towards the country’s economy. There are short term and long term benefits of this programme. In March 2011, when the price of vegetables increased significantly, the innovative Divineguma programme was able to bring down the prices within three months. Over 100,000 acres of coconut has been cultivated under this programme during the last one and half years.

The people’s purchasing power increased within a very short time. Another reason which could be attributed for this drastic price reduction is the flow of additional vegetable stocks into the market, cultivated in home gardens, he said.

The dairy farming sector faced many challenges posed by the private sector and certain elements with vested interests during the successful implementation of Divineguma. Multinational companies promoted misconceptions in the minds of the public on drinking fresh milk and discouraged people from consuming fresh milk. That is how our traditional milk man stopped coming to our homes every morning. At the moment there is an unbelievable demand for various varieties of grass.

Poverty alleviation is not only feeding poor people forever. If we take a single village, there are many state officials attached to the Divisional Secretariat. We can make these sections active and of more service to the people. Poverty alleviation is not restricted to the Economic Development Ministry.

Over 21 line Ministries are connected with Divi negma. All ministries in the agriculture sector, coconut industry, export, indigenous medicine, etc are involved in the programme, he added.