Two weeks ago, the Department of Agriculture announced that Sri Lanka would not need to import rice, green gram, black gram, kurakkan (finger millet), cowpea, and groundnut in 2023 and that Sri Lanka had reached self-sufficiency in rice due to the reintroduction of chemical fertiliser following the former Government’s chemical fertiliser ban.

However, this past week, Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera backtracked on the claims of self-sufficiency, saying at an event in Angunakolapelessa on 29 July that there was a risk of Sri Lanka facing a food shortage if the current dry weather conditions were to continue.

“Cultivated paddy lands in several districts have been destroyed due to the drought. Due to the prevailing severe drought the farmers are facing the problem of not having enough water for their crops,” he said. 

“Over 50,000 acres of paddy fields under the Udawalawe Reservoir are at risk of being destroyed due to lack of water. At least two more shifts of water should be given to these paddy fields. There is an acute shortage of water for paddy fields in the Anuradhapura District. If there is no significant rainfall forecast for the next few days, there may be a risk of a rice shortage in the coming period due to the failure of the expected harvest in the Yala season,” the Minister said.

In 2022, more than 800,000 MT of rice was imported to Sri Lanka at a cost of around $ 400 million due to the drop in production of rice and other domestic food crops due to the chemical fertiliser ban imposed in 2021. Other food crops also had to be imported in the same manner.

Previously, the Department of Agriculture said that there would be a surplus of 300,000 MT of rice in 2023 and that with the harvest of the last Maha season and this Yala season, Sri Lanka could produce 2.7 million MT of rice, while the annual requirement of rice in the country was 2.4 million MT.

Risk of food shortage if dry weather continues

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Amaraweera said that based on weather projections, the situation did not appear to be favourable and that should the dry weather conditions continue, a food shortage could be likely. However, he added that there was no such shortage in the food supply at the moment.

“We are asking people to grow wherever they can,” he said, adding that Sri Lanka had been informed about an El Niño which could continue until the middle of next year.

According to a report issued last month by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, setting the stage for a likely surge in global temperatures and disruptive weather and climate patterns.

WMO forecasted that there was a 90% probability of the El Niño event continuing during the second half of 2023, which was expected to be at least of moderate strength. El Niño occurs on average every two to seven years and episodes typically last nine to 12 months. 

WMO stated that El Niño could also cause severe droughts over Australia, Indonesia, parts of southern Asia, Central America, and northern South America.

Amaraweera said that the ministry had requested farmers to grow crops which could be cultivated with lower water usage, as conserving water was a priority. 

“We should protect what we have now. We have asked to stop the usage of rice for animal feed and beer production,” he said. 

The Minister said that there was no need to import food at the moment as conditions were not severe, but noted that the Government would allow the import of maize to replace rice for animal feed.

Ministry informs farmers of decisions to take 

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Ministry of Agriculture Secretary Gunadasa Samarasinghe said that the ministry had informed farmers of the relevant decisions that should be taken at the upcoming Maha season meetings if the dry weather conditions continued until September.

He said that the farmers had been informed about cultivating paddy using less water than usual in order to ensure food security.

Samarasinghe also said that the authorities were currently discussing how to conserve water in tanks after small rainfalls, which were expected during the period, and use them for cultivation.

No framework to address the situation

Department of Agriculture Additional Director General (Research) Dr. Jayantha Senanayake said that crops in areas such as Ampara and Monaragala had already been harvested by the end of the Yala season, but added that areas which had started cultivating later would have issues with the harvest if the current weather conditions continued.

“We cannot estimate how much damage the crops will suffer if the dry conditions continue,” he said.

Senanayake noted that no proper framework was being followed by the department at present in managing the situation, as directives on how to respond were given by the Presidential Secretariat and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Sri Lanka has recent experience of agriculture policies backfiring and causing food insecurity, as 6.3 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2022.

However, with the reintroduction of chemical fertilisers, food security has improved across all provinces, with a United Nations (UN) report noting that food insecurity has dropped by nearly 40% from July 2022.

A Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) report jointly carried out in February-March 2023 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) revealed that an estimated 3.9 million people or 17% of the population was facing moderate acute food insecurity as at May 2023.

This indicated a nearly 40% decrease from June-July 2022, with nearly 10,000 people considered severely acute food insecure at present, down from 66,000 people last year.

The food insecurity witnessed last year prompted the Government to work on a food security policy which is yet to be implemented. 

The draft of the Conceptual Policy Framework on Food Security (Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Fisheries) was presented to the Sub Committee on Identifying the Priorities in Formulation of Short-, Medium-, and Long-Term National Policies of the National Council on 28 July after eight months of preparing the policy framework.

MP Asanka Navaratne, who heads the working committee appointed to prepare a national policy for food security, told The Sunday Morning that the policy framework would be presented to Parliament on Thursday (10).

Partial implementation of policies 

“We cannot say that there is no agriculture policy, since there are State policies such as the National Agriculture Policy, created in 2007,” University of Peradeniya Faculty of Agriculture Department of Agricultural Economics Senior Professor Jeevika Weerahewa said. 

She said that although there were various agricultural policies which came after 2007, none of them had reached the level of Cabinet approval. However, questions remain on whether these policies are suitable for Sri Lanka and if they can be used to emerge from the current problems affecting the agriculture sector.

Weerahewa said the National Agriculture Policy and policy statements such as ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa contained policies on agriculture, which had been compiled following extensive research. “If all those policies had been implemented in their entirety instead of being implemented piecemeal, then I think we would not be in the current situation,” she added.

The goals and objectives of Sri Lanka’s National Agricultural Policy created in 2007 were as follows:

1) Increase domestic agricultural production to ensure food and nutrition security of the nation 

2) Enhance agricultural productivity and ensure sustainable growth 

3) Maximise benefits and minimise adverse effects of globalisation on domestic and export agriculture 

4) Adopt productive farming systems and improved agro-technologies with a view to reducing the unit cost of production and increasing profits

5) Adoption of technologies in farming that are environmentally friendly and harmless to health 

6) Promote agro-based industries and increase employment opportunities 

7) Enhance the income and the living standard of the farming community

Overdoing self-sufficiency

Weerahewa said that Sri Lanka was overdoing the concept of self-sufficiency in food with measures such as import bans which had caused pain to consumers.

For example, she noted that although import bans on items such as green gram and black gram in the past few years had forced people to start growing them locally, the prices had gone up due to the decrease in supply, hurting consumers.

Moreover, she said that the authorities did not have much interest in encouraging agricultural exports even though the agricultural policies highlighted the need for increasing agricultural exports.

According to Central Bank data, agricultural exports including spices amounted to about $ 600 million in 2022. Meanwhile, these exports were valued at about $ 180 million in the first five months of 2023.

Weerahewa also said that food security did not mean making the country self-sufficient with locally-grown food. “The meaning of food security is that every citizen in the country gets safe, quality, and nutritious food in the amount they need for consumption,” she said, adding that most of the agriculture policies formulated in Sri Lanka had been compiled on the assumption that food security meant being self-sufficient in food. 

She said that Sri Lanka should use the taxpayers’ money to conduct research into new food crops for farmers, which would ‘save’ agriculture in Sri Lanka. She noted that Sri Lanka was not doing much research in the agriculture sector and that there was a significant shortage of expertise in the Department of Agriculture for conducting such research.

Moreover, she said that when comparing the yields of most Sri Lankan crops with others in the region, production was very small as the growing of hybrid crops was not as developed in Sri Lanka compared to others in the region. “Policies should be made to develop such things. What we have done in the past 60 years is provide a subsidy for fertiliser,” she added.

Buffer stock and disaster readiness

Weerahewa said that Sri Lanka should expand its disaster management strategies considering situations such as drought which was forecasted in the Maha season, where the State should maintain buffer stocks to face such unexpected scenarios.

She said that in a country like Sri Lanka where the staple food was rice, there should be a buffer stock of rice to face emergency situations.

Although the private sector maintained such stocks, she said that there was no information about their volumes and capacity: “Maintaining buffer stocks with the backing of the Government is very important.”

She added that there should be an active team to monitor global prices of food items Sri Lanka could purchase at low prices to fill the shortfall in food supply in emergency situations. “We have to make plans considering climate change because it cannot be ignored anymore,” Weerahewa warned.