I fully agree with the views expressed in the editorial or a recent issue of Lanka Woman, regarding the shabby treatment meted out to our rice farmers by the government of late.

This is probably due to the fact that rice farmers as a whole have a lesser share of the vote bank as compared to the urban poor land may be even the middle class as rice consumers, as much as to the Principle of comparative advantage so often touted by economists who advocate unbriddled operation of free market operations. Yet, quite apart from the humane dimension (viz-a-viz bankruptcies and associated suicides followed by misery for the entire families of the farmers concerned,) leaving everything to be sorted out by the free market can be suicidal for the country both in the short and long run.

In the short run – there is a civil war going on in the North and the East, with the Tigers drawing support from the community in Tamil Nadu, which in turn is exerting pressure on the Central Government of India to intervene on their behalf. What if India were to impose a naval blockade on us, if we are to depend on rice imports alone for our daily bread? We must grow sufficient food on our own land to be able to survive such a siege till international pressure acts on our behalf. In this sense, Mrs. Bandaranaike’s government during 1970-1977 was right in a way, even if they went about it by cutting out food imports completely, thereby reducing virtually everybody unconnected to a government politico down to subsistence level. (What she should have done was to have slowly phased them out by simultaneously offering better prices to our local farmers by increasing import tariffs, and organising a good raw food collection and distribution system - something which succeeding governments too have failed to do properly. And now they have dismantled the Paddy Marketing Board too!)

In the long run, what if after us and everybody else in Asia have come to depend on American farmers for our rice simply because they can produce it more cheaply, if the said American farmers were suddenly to increase the price five or six fold? This is not a such silly speculation either. In the 1970s, if I remember right, the oil producing nations concentrated in the Middle East formed themselves into a cartel, and started jacking up prices arbitrarily. This went on at quite a pace until, other less richer oil and natural gas reserves elsewhere in the world started becoming economically viable. Our economy had still not recovered from that oil shock, I think; and certainly our foreign policy had come to be dictated in part by the Middle Eastern countries’ wishes and desires.

And the art of rice cultivation in this country has been largely passed from father to son. But if all the sons were to be persuaded that rice cultivation spelled economic ruin, they will turn to other pursuits. Neither would any new entrants come into the field, and schemes like the Mahaweli Diversion Project would not generate their full promised benefit.

We have no oil, gas or coal to speak of. But we have land, vast arable tracts of it, compared to our population. So, let us use it. For if we come to be dependent on foreign imports for even our basic food items, including this staple of our diet, rice, we might be harbouring still more woe in the days to come.
Prianthi Wickramasuriya