News
Protest for quality food
View(s):No one can predict the dangers facing the country. A pestilence, famine or flood will affect all citizens. When the City of Visala was beset by the three Great Pests, Disease, Famine and Evil Spirits, the Lord Buddha called the clergy and chanted pirith from Rathana Sutta and removed all fear. He made the City of Visala secure.
There was a great economic turmoil in Thailand recently. The Maha Sangha got on the streets, begged for alms and donated the collections to the State. Even in Sri Lanka when calamity struck, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist clergy have risen to the occasion and helped overcome the situation. The 2004 tsunami disaster was a good example.
Today the farmer involved in paddy, tea and rubber cultivation is faced with serious problems. If this crisis is allowed to escalate it will affect the whole economy. The clergy must get together and address this economic issue. If an issue affects a majority of the citizens, it should be taken more seriously. It is the responsibility of everyone to safeguard the economy of the country.
Some still do not know the brewing crisis in the tea industry. Those in the know are not taking adequate action either. It is said that this is a problem for the Government. Media reports said the Prime Minister had addressed this issue. But we cannot wait till the Government solves this problem. Both the land owner and the industrialist must safeguard tea and rubber.
Our tea had a big market overseas once. To meet the big demand we became avaricious and increased the production with no concern for quality. The quality suffered. The former owners of tea plantations spent greater part of their time in the factory overseeing the production and improving quality. Today their foreign-educated children run the industry. They stay in the city and do not visit the estates. Some of them have not seen a tea factory. So the factory managers, store keepers are running the industry. They are salaried people and are not concerned. The industry has suffered.
China too is producing tea. The Chinese heat the tea leaf and make green tea. They do not use artificial fertilizer for tea cultivation. They use carbonic fertilizer. Even we used carbonic fertilizer once. With the fertilizer subsidy more tea was produced at the expense of its quality. With the increasing demand tea industry became somewhat artificial. Tea lost its aroma, taste and, of course, the quality.
Some opportunists added more to the problem. They ground tea leaves and twigs, added chemicals, a little good tea to the mixture and introduced it to the market. Now Ceylon Tea has lost its good name. Since the price of tea went down because of this, the Government stepped in and gave a subsidy to the tea industry. Now the problem has aggravated. The Government cannot afford to continue with the subsidy. Is the Government solely responsible for this situation?
Instead of giving a subsidy, the Government must allocate persons for proper production and detail others to monitor the quality of tea. It is a two way operation. If we export quality tea, the demand for our tea will increase and we will have a better price. There is a belief that the tea that is available locally is just powdered tea dyed. Some people now do not drink tea because of this but go for soft drinks. If we do not understand the gravity of the problem, we cannot solve it. We must grant financial support to those who produce quality tea. Then there will be a great enthusiasm to produce quality tea.
We have reached the stage that we have to import rubber latex. This is artificial rubber. This has resulted in the price of our natural rubber going down. We have to first put a stop to the import of rubber, and then address the problem. The rubber industry is hit by a dearth of rubber tappers. Some tappers cheat their owners. They hide part of the latex by burying it in the ground. Later they dig it out and sell it as hardened rubber. The owner does not get a proper harvest.
We have a similar problem with our local paddy production. We now use machinery and harvest the paddy even before it matures. There is no proper drying now. Within two weeks of husking the paddy, it is infested with weevils and other pests. The whole paddy industry has been spoilt by the introduction of artificial fertilizer.
We do not have threshing floors like in the good old days. It is useless taking the problems of our paddy production to international forum. We only have to discuss this problem with the farmer, the owner and those involved in the industry. Since all of them are on the wrong track, the paddy, tea and rubber industries are suffering and making losses. There is little meaning in blaming the Government for this. We have to concentrate on proper production. The Government must punish those who are ruining these industries and reward those who are developing them.
Fruit production in Sri Lanka too suffers a similar fate. To protect the fruits from rats, monkeys and birds, farmers spray the tree with chemicals. Animals can smell the chemicals; so they keep away. The farmer plucks these contaminated fruits and offers them to us. We eat these fruits and complain about kidney and liver problems. We should ban the import of chemical fertilizer for vegetables and fruits.
Some time ago, electricity rates went up. Because of this the fisher folk took a bag of formalin to sea. Since the weight too was less the problem was less. During the time of President J.R. Jayewardene, two businessmen imported six containers of formalin regularly. I submitted the Customs report about this to the then President, but he could not stop it. So we had to stop buying fish with formalin. This was a Mafia that operated. The whole public sector was under this mafia. We have to stop this mafia.
Almost all of us drink tea. We don’t complain and make a big noise about its quality. Even if we are served dyed refuse tea we drink it. We must now protest, if we are served dyed refuse tea. Most journalists drink tea, probably refuse tea, but they do not protest. We need to protest. Instead holding public protests over matters of little importance, we should protest to have quality rice, quality tea and quality foodstuffs. This will be beneficial to all.