With rice shortages continuing to impact Sri Lanka’s populous, and the tug-of-war between industry and State continuing, the absence of some types of rice in the market, and the high price for the staple food highlights the island nation's failure to address a key national issue. Political parties, farmers and industry often trout Sri Lanka’s historic achievements of once being termed ‘the granary of Asia’. However, little concrete action has been taken to address the food security issue, which impacts a wide cross section of the country, particularly the urban poor.

The new Government, last week through a cabinet decision, addressed a long-standing issue related to food security by establishing a Food Policy and Security Committee under the Presidential Secretariat. It also tasked a group of officials to maintain a data system to monitor the existing food stocks in the country, which one would have thought was how officials managed food stocks up to date, but better late than never. According to the Government, the committee aims to provide every citizen with their minimum food requirements in sufficient quantity and quality at an affordable price. While affordable prices would be a hard ask in the type of market economy that prevails, it would be welcomed if state officials could at least ensure effective supply in the market. According to the Government, the Food Policy and Security Committee will focus on the following key objectives: Promoting domestic production of all food items that can be produced locally, maintaining a reserve stock of essential food sufficient for at least three months, establishing and maintaining a comprehensive data system on existing food stocks in the country, and to develop and implementing effective programmes to enhance food security by ensuring efficient production, storage, distribution, wholesale, and retail marketing processes, with active participation from the private sector. Let us hope the Government moves to empower and push this committee to see evidence-based policy making and action soon, and not drag its feet like how they are addressing the alleged credibility issues of the Speaker of the Parliament.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), last year (2023) food security in Sri Lanka was improving across all provinces, according to a joint report by multiple agencies in the third quarter.  The report estimated that nearly 3.9 million people or 17 percent of the population is in moderate acute food insecurity which is nearly a 40 percent decrease from June/July in 2022. According to them, nearly 10,000 people are severely acute food insecure, which was down from 66,000 people last in 2020.  Despite this positive trend, food insecurity remained high in certain districts last year, especially Kilinochchi, Nuwara Eliya, Mannar, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, and Jaffna. The highest level of acute food insecurity was found within the tea plantation communities in the estate sector and among daily-wage labourers and households who rely on social assistance programmes, such as Samurdhi, as their main source of income. In early 2021, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, one third of Sri Lanka faced food insecurity issues. This, while food wastage was nearly 4,000 Tonnes per day. So, there is a lot to be done in terms of food security and building resilience.  

Singapore, in 2019, announced a food security initiative ‘30 by 30,’ trying to reach 30% of food needs produced domestically in.   Later when the pandemic hit, it gave Singaporeans an unfamiliar sight of empty supermarket shelves. However, today, with the passing of the five-year mark, Singapore is seriously questioning delays for the goal set in 2019, especially due to failures or re-configurations of high-tech farms; which the city state pinned their hopes on to meet the targets. Singapore’s problem is that they have a highly limited land mass which they can grow crops in. However, Sri Lanka, despite having three times the population, has ample land which can be used for food production, but is laying waste. 

In Sri Lanka’s case, there are serious shortcomings in strategic planning when it comes to food security. Sri Lanka cultivation, largely weather dependent, lacks a whole of Government approach to mitigate legacy issues. Further, Sri Lanka does not maintain a strategic national reserve of grains, like rice, mung beans and other cereals. State-owned storage facilities are derelict and prone to corruption, with many paddy farmers, refusing to store paddy in the ageing facilities citing poor environmental control and pest attacks which take a toll on the grains which are stored. Sri Lanka desperately needs to review its food security structure and put in place means to maintain mills and store rice and other grains to act as a buffer stock. As such, the new committee has its work cut out for it and needs to act quickly, and in a transparent manner. Given that Sri Lanka will continue to face challenging economic conditions in the foreseeable future, and with continued disruptions to global trade and supply chains likely to grow, Sri Lanka should make food security a national priority.