News
Rice imports continue despite bumper harvest
A glut of rice, the result of a bumper harvest, has not prevented the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to go ahead with more imports.
The move has caused concerns for the Department of Agriculture, which has made recommendations to the Agriculture Ministry on the situation and sought its intervention.
Agriculture Department Acting Director General Sisira Kumara confirmed that he has recommended that rice importation should be stopped in view of ongoing paddy harvesting. “Despite the drought conditions the expected paddy production of the current Maha season would be sufficient to feed the nation for seven months,” Mr Kumara said.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce said it was going ahead with its plans to permit the import of rice on the grounds that it was anticipating a drop in the paddy harvest. The Sunday Times learns that the decision of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has been taken without a review of the ground situation where the paddy harvesting has begun in several districts including Ampara, Trincomalee, Hambantota, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. Harvesting is due to begin in other districts soon.
According to projections based on the reported cultivated extent as at end of December 2017, a harvest of 2,316 million metric tonnes was expected – a 16 per cent drop compared with a normal season’s production. Mr Kumara explained that they informed the ministry to take necessary action and cancel the permits given for private importers during the harvest.
“Our Department encourages farmers to grow and instructs them about ways to maximise their yield. The farmers followed the advice and made a good harvest, but they are unable to sell their produce at a reasonable price because of the imports,” he said.He said that businessmen and middle men made profit by forcing farmers to sell their produce on their terms.
“This trend will be stopped, since we are introducing a database where we enter the required amount of crop harvest we need, the amount of harvest the country requires and amount of produce remaining from last harvest,” he said. The Agriculture Department in its recommendations also says the cultivation progress reported from the Western, Southern, Northern, Eastern and Mahaweli areas are fairly good while the cultivation of the Uva, North Central and Northwestern provinces are below targets.
Industry and Commerce Ministry Director Indika Ranatunga said that since they were expecting a drop of paddy harvest due to the drought they had allowed private importers and millers to import rice till march 31. She said that in the previous year, both private millers and state enterprises had imported 800,000 metric tonnes of rice from various countries, including India and Pakistan.
Ms Ranatunga said people consumed around 200,000 metric tonnes of rice a month and, therefore, were expecting a 6 month lasting harvest from the Maha season. However All Island Farmers Federation (AIFF) National Organiser Namal Karunaratne said that importers and millers use foreign rice only to glut the market and thereby bring the prices down so that they could buy the farmer’s produce at a lower price.“The millers tell the farmers we have enough and more rice at our mills, if you want to sell your paddy to us you can sell it at the price given by us or keep your produce at home,” he said.
Mr. Karunaratne said that after the harvest purchasing ended, the millers ether mix the imported rice with the local rice and sell it at high prices or as animal feed. Meanwhile over the past week lorries belonging to main paddy millers were seen in areas awaiting to purchase the harvest at a low price.