Editorial

The Government has run into some turbulence over the way it has handled the marooned Sri Lankan migrant workers, especially those in the Gulf countries.

The sheer logistical nightmare of bringing back tens of thousands of those working abroad would have been mind-boggling given the limited resources at the Government’s command. Additionally, it faced criticism for allowing those from Italy to return in the early days of the pandemic’s spread and letting them loose because they kept the country open purely to accommodate nominations for a Parliamentary election.

With airports and borders fast closing down around mid-March, and airlines being grounded, these workers grounded in West Asia seemed a forgotten lot. The Ministries of Foreign Relations and of Labour seem to have been sidelined by a different group at a different level which began to prioritise differently.

The Government seems to have not wanted the Gulf workers to return in haste. It was pointed out that a) there were no quarantine facilities readily available to lodge them for 14 days; b) that those workers may not get their jobs back in the likelihood of a recession in West Asia; and c) and finding jobs locally would be no easy task considering the recession locally.

These workers have been wanting to return since March but the Government is seen as being of the view that the country as a whole was going to be the loser in lost remittances if they returned.

Such foreign remittances have long been what has helped the Sri Lankan economy survive — for the country to not only pay its oil and import bills but even for MPs to buy their duty free cars so these can be flogged in the open market. The point is, whether the ultimate choice was with the Sri Lankan citizen wanting to return home, or the Government.

These workers have been huddled in transit camps in some of those countries and contracted the virus in the meantime. Now, two plane loads arrived in Sri Lanka last week carrying the virus with them. Even the economically developed countries have had similar issues of getting their citizens studying, working or holidaying, back home. They have dropped the ball in that field. It must also embarrass them that those workers from the poorer developing world feel safer at home than remaining in those developed countries.

Countries like India have problems of huge magnitude, particularly with domestic migrant workers. Scenes of their working population travelling through the sub-continent brought eerie reminders of the 1947 Partition. This is apart from their problem of getting overseas workers back home. There are many benefits, after all, in being a small island-nation with a manageable population and no porous borders.

We are told that Sri Lankan diplomatic missions in several countries had to plead with Colombo to get these Sri Lankan workers repatriated. It may be easier said than done, but there was also some hesitation shown in bringing these marooned workers because these folks were good “milch cows” for the economy as long as they were there. That has always been the case with almost a million Sri Lankan workers abroad.

Farmers mired in fertiliser crisis

The Constitution may invoke the blessings that the rains come in time for a bountiful harvest, but if those in charge of agriculture cannot ensure the farmers get their fertiliser on time, there would be little hope of such a harvest.

Desperate last ditch attempts are in progress to distribute the fertiliser to farmers who have cleared their fields and are already receiving rainfall. All types of excuses have been trotted out, that the previous Government left an outstanding bill of Rs. 10 billion to the private sector; that the COVID crisis disrupted imports and curfews dislocated local transport. All that is of little comfort to the farmer who is waiting with mammoty on his shoulder to till his land.

The GMOA, then in the forefront of the COVID task force, advocated home gardens and the like, and factory workers who went home during the recent lockdown started cultivating abandoned plots taking what was left of fertiliser in the market. The over-use of fertiliser by unskilled ‘farmers’ and the free fertiliser system have contributed to its abuse, and the abuse of the soil.

The Central Bank’s latest report refers to ‘smart agriculture’. They have long advocated the need for new technologies that range from high-yielding fertiliser, pesticides, irrigation and water management etc. The application of fertiliser is part and parcel of agriculture and there’s nothing smart about it when it is not available.

Sri Lanka has still not been able to extend its agricultural development into agro-based industry with the manufacture of fertiliser locally not firing. The country continues to rely on imports.  About Rs. 35 billion is spent annually by the Government on the fertiliser subsidy. On the other hand, the last Government suddenly imposed a presidential decree banning certain imported weedicides saying they contributed to the widespread kidney disease among farmers. Then, it was found there was no co-relation between the two. No one really knows if the multinationals eventually won the day by debunking the theory, or the ban was merely a part of a populist, unscientific anti- multinationals campaign.

During the recent outbreak of COVID-19, Sri Lankans were fortunate that there was no shortage of rice, their staple food. It would have been hard to import rice had there been a shortage because it was not available ‘for love or money’ from rice-growing countries that were also hit by the virus and the import trade, shipping and harbours had become dysfunctional.

This is not just luck. Credit for Sri Lanka’s self-sufficiency in rice must go back to the country’s first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake who opened up the Eastern Province with the Gal Oya scheme and which was to become the ‘rice bowl’ of the nation. Those who opened up the North Central Province with irrigation schemes, and more recently the Mahaveli scheme followed. Self-sufficiency in rice was a high priority in the 1960s, and the country should be proud to have achieved it.

The emergence of a ‘rice mafia’ that has been exposed with recent raids by the Consumer Affairs Authority shows how a handful of millers have monopolised the entire market. These multi-millionaires know to survive with political patronage. Exporting rice should be the next target of the country as a whole.

For now, however, the Government must ensure the farmer gets his fertiliser on time if the people are not to go hungry without their favourite rice plate in the months ahead.