Financial Times

Rice direct to Colombo from the farmer
By Quintus Perera from Dehiatthakandiya
Approaching Dehiatthakandiya, about 300 kilometres away from Colombo, in the early hours a common sight, the women carrying bananas and vegetables on their heads in search of a market for their produce. Men carrying large gunny bags full of vegetables expecting a better price, is another sight that depicts the struggle to survive of these poor peasant farmers.

Coming under Mahaweli System C, Dehiatthakandiya is one area developed under the Mahaweli Scheme for paddy cultivation and for many of its cultivators and settlers harvesting paddy has come from their roots.

Though farming paddy has been done over a period of around 20 years, the quality of life for farmers hasn’t improved as they still struggle for a reasonable price for their paddy.

Foremost retailer in Sri Lanka, Cargills (Ceylon) Ltd, found that almost 62 percent of the income of average Sri Lankans was spent on food and food based items, and felt that penetration of this market would create more jobs, reduce the cost of living and would provide better and stable prices for the farmers.

The company entered into the vegetable market around five years ago and today Cargills provides some comfort to farmers here. Though the vegetable purchases are still around 10 percent of the market, the company is pumping a massive one billion rupees per day to the rural economy through vegetable purchases directly from the farmer.

Rice comes first among these food items and penetration into the food market is essentially through rice. Though paddy is grown abundantly, the market is controlled by some unscrupulous opportunist traders even to the extent of harassing the rice farmer.

Two years ago Cargills began purchasing rice from a group of farmers through rice millers promoted by them, with the help of the Mahaweli Authority and started out with only 50 tons of rice per month. Now they purchase 450 tons per month, 10 percent of the Mahaweli System C harvest and they hope for an increase in the purchases to 25 percent in the near future.

To symbolise their presence in the rice market, promote and to keep the name of Cargills rice on top of the minds of the consumers, Cargills took a lot of effort to ceremonially perform “Ran Karal Aswannu Mangalyaya” (Golden Rice Harvesting Festival), a dying Sinhala custom of thanking the deities for the harvest at a remote village Nikawathalanda close to Dehiatthakandiya where a concentration of rice farmers sell their produce to Cargills.

The programme aims at popularising their red and while raw rice ideal for milk rice “Kiribath” for the coming Sinhalese and Tamil New Year which would be sold in packets under Cargills’ own brand name.

The festival included among other things reaping the paddy from the field around the spot, machine thrashing them into paddy in the traditional village way. Cargills also tries to convince customers that they are marketing new rice of best quality for the New Year.

The usual practice in the rural areas is to cook the new rice for the Avurudu Kiribath as that is readily available in their ‘Atuwa’, the home paddy store. Upholding this traditional festival Cargills Food City has tried to achieve a dual purpose of promoting the rice and to continue this dying tradition which has been practiced in rural Sri Lanka for many generations.

The festival featured a chain of harvesting rituals as well as colourful folk dances and songs, performed by the farmer communities here. This is also an attempt to ensure that those farmers who sell their rice to Cargills are able to sell their yield at a competitive price.

The festival itself was a tedious process and it was performed in the hot sun while a large number of Buddhist monks were conducted to the venue from a nearby temple in a colourful procession led by various types of dancers performed by village girls, boys, men and women. The monks chanted Pirith and Anusasana seated in the middle of the thrashing field and by the side there was the usual small enclosure made out of Gokkola, the tender coconut leaves (cadjan).

After the Buddhist customary rituals, the Kattandiya clad in red performed the traditional offerings to the deities followed by reaping the paddy, commencing around 11 am by a group of village damsels clad in the usual chintz and jacket (Redda Hette) supplemented by another group of farmers in the task, prior to machine threshing the paddy and symbolic selling by the farmers to Cargills.
Mahaweli System C represents around 900 farmers covering the villages of Sandagalatenne, Mavanewela and Nikawathalanda. The Sunday Times FT spoke to several rice farmers who gathered to witness the harvesting festival. Since Cargills was involved with only a few farmers, the large majority of the rice farmers were up with the usual perennial problem of their inability to sell their harvest.

Rice farmers told the Sunday FT that their greatest worry was the selling of their harvest in time to celebrate the New Year. During most festive seasons, these farmers lamented that they were unable to buy their families new clothes, etc and therefore some of them were tired of paddy cultivation as they were eternally in debt to traders, for their inputs and most of the time the farmers were compelled to sell their produce to the trader at whatever price the trader wanted.

In selling rice, Cargills has meticulously systematised the rice programme getting the Mahaweli Authority to train a group of millers with all the necessary assistance provided. In addition Cargills has identified their segment of paddy suppliers to the millers and ensure these farmers receive higher prices for their paddy. These farmers could also obtain bank loans for their cultivation through a bank guarantee scheme arranged by Cargills. By offering farmers a better price and assurance of prompt payments, farmers are clamouring to sell their paddy to Cargills.

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