RICE UNFIT FOR CONSUMPTION IN MARKET, CLAIM MILL OWNERS
All Ceylon Agrarian Organisation threatens campaign
The All Ceylon Agrarian Organisation said yesterday at a meeting that it would launch protests all over the country against injustice done to the paddy cultivators.
“Stocks of rice condemned and sold for use as forage had been released to the market for human consumption by racketeers,” Gen. Sec. of Medium/ Small Scale Rice Mill Owners’ Association G.D.S. Somachandra said at the meeting.
“We will launch massive campaigns against depriving the farmers and the small scale rice mill owners of their rights,” the organisation said.
“This will lead to an increase in the price of local rice and eventually pave the way for the import of rice in unlimited quantities,” it said.
Representatives of the All Ceylon Agrarian Organisation, Medium Scale and Small Scale Rice Mill Owners and Paddy Purchasers’ Organisation, attended the meeting
National Convener of the Organization Namal Karunaratne told the media that the campaign would commence today from the Senanayake Samudra reservoir bund.
He said that a secret plot to destroy agriculture was being hatched and that the price of all varieties of rice had sky rocketed. He claimed that large scale rice mill owners were having a monopoly of rice and purchased paddy for a song.
“The Paddy Marketing Board that purchases paddy secretly sells the stocks to the large scale rice mill owners. Hundreds of medium scale and small scale rice mills all over the country have been closed and the machinery in several of them have been dismantled and sold as scrap.
“The Govt. has allowed the monopoly of a handful of large scale rice mill owners receiving political patronage to go on unchecked. Meanwhile, the paddy cultivators in many areas have not yet received the fertilizer subsidy. The PMD has decided to release 150,000 metric tons of paddy to the private sector. The large scale rice mill owners would purchase the entire stock,” he said. He said that the paddy cultivation in several areas had failed for want of water. He claimed that the release of water from the major reservoirs had been purposely delayed.