Editorial

The World Food Programme (WFP) has switched the warning light on food insecurity in Sri Lanka from amber to red. It says in its latest report issued this week that one-third of the population or 37% is food insecure and that as much as 74% is resorting to “coping strategies” such as relying on less preferred food, limiting portion size and reducing the number of meals.

These statistics are not surprising. The media have been full of the coming events casting their shadows over a country that has not only been hit by the COVID pandemic and a global economy in recession, but also by foolish policy decisions domestically that upended the backbone of the agricultural economy.

If in 2019 – just three years ago, food insecurity was 9% of the population, in June this year it had jumped to 28% and now stands at 37%, i.e. one in every three households facing “insufficient food consumption with many consuming far less diverse diets due to price increases”, the WFP report adds.

The world is also in turmoil on the food front. This week, the subject of food insecurity was a topic at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. As if the world is short of upheavals, the war in Ukraine and climate change – floods and droughts devastating cities, have added to the mix.

Many argue that the food crisis has many layers to it: some of it relates to the economic model rigged by, and for, the few. Oxfam, which claims it is fighting to end injustice of poverty that keeps people poor, debunks the theory that it is the war in Ukraine, and that everyone is suffering from high food prices because there is a scarcity of food, as all myths. It claims 62 new food billionaires were created during the COVID pandemic alone and that the world’s top grain traders have seen record profits. This goes counter to the US refrain at the UN about the ‘Russian war in Ukraine’. Unfortunately, Oxfam itself, and other charities like it have had to deal with bad housekeeping.

On another side of the spectrum, Inter-Press Service (IPS) – a global news agency, reported from its New York bureau on a WFP report that as many as 800 million plus people, mostly in Asia and Africa were heading towards mass hunger and starvation, and 45 countries are actually teetering on the edge of famine. It cites the cruel paradox quoting from a report of the US Department of Agriculture which estimates a staggering USD 161 billion worth of unconsumed food is wasted and dumped in landfills around America. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Sri Lanka is one of those 45 countries identified as heading towards a very serious food disaster. The Department of Census and Statistics said this week that the Cost of Living has climbed to a new high of 70% from 66.2%. There is a slump in the production of cereals and paddy. Foreign Governments and international agencies are doling out the cash to keep the food economy from total breakdown. People are dipping into their savings and borrowing desperately like the country unable to pay back loans. Another set of ‘vultures’, meanwhile, is feeding on the poor, mostly the politicians and officials together with businessmen.

What of those who don’t have such savings, those who live on their day’s earnings? The WFP report says people in rural Sri Lanka, especially in the Central and Uva provinces, are most at risk from food insecurity. The President’s Office last week issued an executive order that no citizen should be allowed to face starvation and his office set up a hotline for any emergency calls. The diktat to grassroots level administrators comes in the backdrop of a controversy over Thriposha, the nutritional food supplement given to school kids at midday, and the setting up of a parliamentary caucus for children.

The existing Samurdhi poverty alleviation programme started in 1994 as a successor to the Janasaviya programme of President R. Premadasa, like all things Sri Lankan went the way of corruption and politically motivated selection of eligible families. That safety net for those below the poverty line had huge holes in it. The bigger picture was, as pointed out by the UN/FAO, the lack of political will to change from a welfare mechanism to a development approach for the people.

Today, the country is trying to take that very detour as welfarism is no longer affordable. But what about the immediate needs of the poor? How can they be ignored? In India, a National Food Security Act (NFSA) was enacted in 2013 by the Manmohan Singh Government. Its preamble states; “to provide food and nutritional security ensuring access to an adequate quantity of food at affordable prices to live a life with dignity”. It made the eldest woman of a beneficiary household the ‘Head of Family’ and covered almost 75% of rural India, which despite recent economic progress, remains fairly poor.

The Indian Act had its detractors. The same criticism of political interference was made, calling it “election security”, and accusations were levelled of fiscal irresponsibility. But the law continues, ensuring that the ‘right to food’ for all Indians remains a fundamental right. Today the NFSA is the key pillar supporting the food safety schemes in India – the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), the Mid Day Meal (MDM) for schoolchildren and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) – a supplementary nutrition programme. Some 760 million ration card holders obtain subsidised food grain through a network of fair price shops and state and national warehouses.

It is a huge operation that provided a huge lifeline for the poor during the recent pandemic. The present Indian Government has not jettisoned the programme because it was begun by a rival political party, rather recognised its benefits and built on it. It may be time for the President to formalise his executive order through a similar Act in Sri Lanka drawing from the experience of India’s efforts to keep a population of over a billion people from experiencing the pangs of hunger and looming spectre of starvation.

Food insecurity must not develop into food riots and social upheaval at any cost.