• Changing food culture, corporate capture, and import dependency 

A great transformation in food culture and nutrition is taking place in Sri Lanka following various exogenous shocks. The traditional, nutritious “rice and fish” diet common throughout coastal Asia is increasingly substituted with imported maize- or corn-fed chicken, white wheat-flour-based bread varieties, instant noodles, and processed food. In this island at the centre of the Indian Ocean, for the first time in history, the humble fish-based lunch pack is more expensive than a chicken lunch pack.

Similarly, the nutritious local baby jackfruit (polos) and cashew nut curry, high protein staples for vegetarians, have been replaced with chemically processed soya “meat”. Meanwhile, imported walnuts, hazelnuts, and peanuts are available, while Norwegian salmon was imported into this lush and fertile island with extensive ocean resources, to feed tourists and the local elite. 

Amid questionable fear-inducing narratives of famine and climate change in a tropical island, President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently reversed a ban on the open account import of corn, maize seed, and soybean, in order to enable poultry farmers to feed livestock, according to a gazette notice. A ban on open account imports that was imposed to save US dollars after the April debt-trap-induced default was reversed by the President in September.

Rice and fish in Asian cultures

For centuries, freshly caught fish with country rice (Nadu) has been a staple of the national diet. Generations of healthy and happy children have grown up eating rice and fish, a diet high in the required protein, calcium, and micronutrients for growth.

On festive occasions, the traditional coconut milk rice (“kiribath”) was always served with tuna fish “ambulthiyal” (sour fish, a Southern preparation), or “miris malu” (devilled fish). In Jaffna and the North, “meen kulambu” (fish curry) is a standard, and often accompanies milk rice.

In many Asian cultures, from Bengal, India, to Indonesia and Vietnam, ‘rice and fish’ is symbolic of abundance. The Chinese Mandarin word for fish, “yu”, has the same pronunciation as the word for surplus or abundance. The new year blessing “nian you yu” expresses wishes for abundance and prosperity or fish in the coming year, and no South East Asian banquet is complete without fish.

However in Sri Lanka, tuna fish was unavailable or unaffordable for much of the year, while small fish had disappeared for months from dinner and lunch tables. Today, even “karawala” or dry fish, the poor person’s protein, is unaffordable. Meanwhile, canned fish was unavailable or unaffordable – in an island nation that should be exporting rather than importing tinned fish caught in Sri Lanka’s extensive and exclusive economic zone.  

The transformation from the traditional “rice and fish” diet to an imported maize-fed chicken and egg diet has been underway for some time, amid various exogenous economic “shocks” like Covid-19. These enable what Canadian author Naomi Klein termed “Disaster Capitalism” in her book titled The Shock Doctrine, as well as the global agribusiness and corporate takeover of national food systems and the policy process. 

For decades, the fisheries sector has contributed a mere 2.5% to the national economy, while citizens are increasingly deprived of fish. However, rather than setting policy priorities to leverage the island’s ample fisheries resources – despite the ongoing debt crisis – the regime is promoting the import of copious amounts of maize seed, corn, and soybeans.

Some have asked: Would there be a maize and soya scam, like the infamous sugar scam? After all, from Treasury Bond scams at the Central Bank in 2015, to organic fertiliser and the recent sugar scams, Treasury Bond traders and business oligarchs associated with successive Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa (a reference to incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe and former presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa) regimes notorious for “insider trading”, have made big profits during staged “scarcities”.

Rice and fish to corn and chicken: New nutrition and disease patterns

Amid stories of children fainting in school due to the lack of protein, Thriposha and Samaposha, the traditional children’s food supplement, which consisted of red rice, kurakkan (finger millet), and green gram, high in micronutrients, are being replaced with milk powder, corn, and processed soya. These are imported by large multinational and agribusiness corporations. 

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has reported that 30% of Sri Lankan children suffer from malnutrition since the US dollar debt default in April of this year. So too have stunting and wasting increased in this fertile tropical island, blessed with two monsoons, plentiful rain and rice harvests, and extensive fisheries resources. 

The current generation of Sri Lankans is the first to source meat-based protein from imported maize-fed, battery-farmed chickens often filled with antibiotics and eggs, rather than fresh fish. Today, prawns from environmentally destructive aquaculture farms are promoted over fresh fish from the seas of Sri Lanka. 

The incidence of malnutrition, obesity, and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like heart attacks, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol (along with pills to mitigate the impacts of consumption and lifestyle changes), have become the main causes for death and disease in the island, primarily due to the changing food culture and nutrition. These NCDs, during the Covid-19 pandemic, were considered “co-morbidities”.

Of course, soya, corn, and wheat-based products like short eats, snacks made of pastry and sugar-filled cakes that are advertised in the media, are both convenient and popular with many urban fast food consumers and producers. During the Covid-19 “panic-demic”, there was an epidemic of sugar-filled cupcakes and cookies sold by homebound bakers on various social media platforms. Cornstarch and soya is used in processed food, with high chemical and palm oil content. 

Imported corn or maize is also more vulnerable to aflatoxins that thrive in hot and humid climates and other biohazards than indigenous rice varieties. For instance, the biowarfare-lab-manufactured Fall Army Worm (FAW or Sena caterpillar), destroyed corn and other grain crops a few years ago in Africa and South Asia. However, indigenous rice crops were relatively undamaged, as they were much more resistant to the imported Sena bug that destroyed food security in many countries in the Global South.

Import dependency or export substitution: Is famine the policy choice?

It is increasingly clear that Sri Lanka urgently needs to leverage her own high-value tuna and other marine fisheries and mineral resources, which are exported to the EU. This is in order to reduce protein deficiency, as well as to wean itself off unhealthy food imports, and also to escape the US dollar debt trap. However, rather than promote self-sufficiency in food, the current policies of the Colombo regime and its economic advisors seem designed to promote import dependency and deepen the US dollar debt trap.

For instance, Sri Lanka now seeks to import genetically modified organism (GMO) seeds, special fertiliser, and pesticides, to grow corn – which is not an indigenous crop. Maize and wheat may soon replace rice as the staple food as the island imports copious amounts of seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides. 

The current Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa regime seems to espouse a confused policy of import dependence, or what may be termed “export substitution” under the guise of “export-led growth”, although the country needs a balanced, co-ordinated, and nuanced set of rational and mixed economic policies that combine import substitution and market-friendly policies as appropriate. This would enable leverage of its extensive marine and mineral resources and ensure national food security, especially at a time of global trade disruption as a new Cold War escalates in the Indian Ocean region.

Neo-colonial corporate takeover of food security with exogenous shocks

The agriculture and fisheries sectors were structurally adjusted following a series of exogenous economic shocks in the past few years. Two years of Covid-19 lockdowns and reset in Sri Lanka debilitated the fisheries and agriculture sectors, and related research institutions. So too were Government extension and support services for fishers and farmers gutted, while corporate agribusinesses that market imported seed, fertiliser, and pesticides made deep inroads among debt-trapped rural farming communities in the Global South.

In the Northeastern rice basket of Vakarai, green cucumbers are being grown in place of rice, while the island is being turned into a Dole banana plantation for the Middle East, in order to earn a few US dollars. This is taking place heedless of the long-term food security implications and biohazards of reliance on imported GMO seeds, and crops in the context of heightened global trade disruptions. 

While crop diversification is a good thing, should Sri Lankans not first leverage their own healthy fisheries resources and ensure self-sufficiency in rice and other indigenous crops, rather than relying on imported corn and maize as a policy priority, given the fuel, transport, and supply chain disruptions of the past months and biohazards such as aflatoxins and the FAW?  

Seeds and fertiliser for maize and green cucumbers that are being grown in Sri Lanka to earn US dollars come from multinational corporations, which must be paid in US dollars too, so the foreign exchange earned is negligible. We are told how much is spent on imported seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides for these crops.

A similar scenario of multinational corporation-led corporate agribusiness attempting to take over the lucrative and massive Indian farming by BlackRock-backed Adani and Ambani during the Covid-19 lockdowns in India was stymied by massive farmers’ protests in New Delhi. These protests, which lasted two years and resulted in more than 700 farmers’ deaths, forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Government to revoke the Farm Laws. Remarkably, BlackRock holds the biggest chunk of Sri Lanka’s international sovereign bond debt, which caused the default and crash of the Sri Lankan rupee.