Agricultural supply chain digitisation gets underway
The Government is now adhering to a new agriculture development policy according to priority to digitising agriculture crop storage and distribution ensuring that essential food produce including rice remains at stable prices.
This will be achieved by coordinating paddy, vegetables and fruits purchasing and marketing programmes using information technology eliminating middle men in the supply chain, Trade Ministry sources said.
Accelerated food production programme is to be implemented increasing the production of selected crops minimising post-harvest loses expanding the network of modern warehouses in agri-production areas.
The ministry is currently focusing attention on the establishment of more warehouses reviving the existing initiative of setting up of a climate-controlled warehouse network country-wide for agricultural produce, a senior official of the ministry revealed.
This will be a key component in a distributed market exchange run on an online platform, he pointed out adding that these stores complexes are to be used to preserve excess harvest of farmers during harvesting periods.
It is aimed at preventing farmers from the frequent practice of throwing such excess vegetable or fruit harvest.
The decision to revive and continue this warehouse network expansion programme was taken at a meeting of senior officials chaired by Minister Bandula Gunawardena with former non-cabinet Minister and economist Dr. Harsha de Silva in attendance on February 15.
It was convened on a request made by Dr. Harsha de Silva from the trade minister and the meeting was held in the presence of Trade Ministry and State Ministry Secretaries, Commissioner of Food and senior officials.
Dr. de Silva noted that Minister Bandula Gunawardena has agreed to continue his plan to establish a countrywide network of climate-controlled warehouses for agricultural produce.
He said that he has also made a request to complete the construction work of the Dambulla climate-controlled warehouse project initiated by him with Indian assistance.
This was a rare occasion where an opposition MP has been given an opportunity to explain his views on reviving the agriculture-based economy of the country, officials said.
The first ever six-chamber 5,000 metric ton capacity climate-controlled warehouse in Dambulla is now being built on a 6.5 hectare land next to the Economic Centre, funded largely by an Indian grant of US$2 million.
The ministry will help the farmers to upgrade their pre and post harvest practices in order to meet the requirements of these new markets, a ministry official emphasised.
He stressed the need of making tripartite arrangements between banks, supermarkets and input companies to assist the farmers.
In a country like Sri Lanka, where food production is in the hands of small producers, a large number of intermediaries are involved in supply and distribution activities.
The structure of the traditional vegetable and fruit supply chains is such that there is a large number of intermediaries (i.e. vegetable collectors, transporting agents, commission agents, etc) between the producer and the consumer, he said.
This system of involving middlemen will be eliminated soon by streamlining the vegetable and fruit supply chains, he added.
A technologically equipped network of temperature and humidity controlled warehouse complex to store the local agriculture harvest would bring more benefits to the country, he emphasised
The smartphone and the Internet can be used to manage these complexes and it will facilitate a future market exchange, he explained.