The present government does not seem to believe in nipping anything in the bud. It lets the grass grow under its lazy feet and allows even manageable problems to develop into crises.

Fear is being expressed in some quarters that rice prices are likely to skyrocket in a month or two as the government has failed to stock enough paddy. Although the government planned to purchase 140,000 tonnes of paddy to keep the unscrupulous private traders bent on hoarding and market manipulation at bay, it has had to settle for only a fraction of that amount as paddy farmers are not willing to dispose of their produce at the government prices. We reported on Monday that they were selling paddy to private traders at much higher prices.

It is a supreme irony that the farmers have turned their back on the State which has subsidised their fertiliser and helped reduce their production costs to a considerable extent. However, in an open economy, farmers cannot be expected to forego an opportunity to sell their produce at higher prices, as a writer argues in an article we are carrying today on another page. The objective of the fertiliser subsidy is to help develop paddy cultivation and not to make farmers sell their produce to the State, he argues.

The government is said to be in a quandary. Matching the prices offered by the private sector is not feasible. On the one hand such a move will lead to a trade war pushing paddy prices further up at the expense of the consumer and on the other the government, unlike the private traders, cannot hoard paddy purchased at higher prices and wait until prices increase to dispose of the stocks. Therefore, the government is said to be considering rice imports to build buffer stocks in case an artificial shortage of rice is created in the local market. This is a balancing act which needs to be performed carefully to help the consumer without hurting the farmer.

The government has a history of bungling over rice imports. As the aforementioned writer points out, importing rice cannot be done in a hurry. It takes time. He says the rice ‘ordered from abroad will reach Sri Lanka when the Maha harvesting is about to begin in March next year. The prices will then tumble and the imported rice will be sold at huge losses to the government." This is an accurate reading of the situation. Besides, more often than not the quality of imported rice is poor. Its distribution has also given rise to allegations of corruption. We once exposed an instance where rice imported by the government to be marketed through the co-operative outlets at reasonable prices was sold to the private sector wholesale in the Colombo port itself.

Thus, it may be seen that imports, unless properly handled, could fail to be a remedy. Instead, they may lead to the government incurring losses, the consumer getting poor quality rice and the farmer being hit by a sudden drop in prices due to a boost to the supply at harvest time.

The government must also factor in some of the recent developments in the world market in planning rice imports. The sharp drop in crude oil prices has made the world less dependent on bio-fuels, the production of which gobbled a large amount of grain the world over sending their prices up. That led to grain produced in the developing countries like Sri Lanka ending up as animal feed in the developed world.

A decrease in the demand for bio-fuel will translate into an increase in the supply of grains as food and a corresponding drop in their prices. World rice prices are also expected to plummet with India lifting its ban on rice exports.

It is unfortunate that large stocks of rice continue to be turned into animal feed in this country. There are reports that a private company openly purchases paddy at higher prices for that purpose under the nose of government officials in the NCP. None other than Ariyasiri Vithanage, Chairman of TradLanka Agricultural Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd. has called for legislation to stop this practice urgently.

Let the government heed his call.

Perhaps, this may be the only country where people get food fit for animals and animals enjoy food fit for humans! A few months ago, it may be recalled, there was a public outcry over some co-operative outlets selling rice infested with weevils. Strangely, there have been no public protests against good rice being turned into animal feed. It is the bounden duty of the government to ensure that animals won't be fed with rice meant for humans.

The government's failure to handle the rice market properly has come as no surprise. It is at the mercy of a powerful troika capable of manipulating the market. It has as the Minister of Agrarian Services (Maithripala Sirisena) the brother of a big-time rice miller (Dudley Sirisena) and as the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Services (Siripala Gamlath) an influential rice mill owner. There is a pithy local saying which roughly translated into English reads: 'To whom can one turn when the ridge and the fence destroy rice?' How can the government compete with the private sector with such people calling the shots in the agrarian sector? Will they ever allow the government to resort to anything by way of competition with the rice millers' Mafia at the expense of their own interests? Isn't this country without an Opposition to confront the government on this score?

If the government claims it could manage the agricultural sector with that troika at the helm, it must also be able to have someone like the President of the Private Bus Owners' Association as the Minister of Transport and run the State transport service efficiently!