Transforming agriculture
In the 1960s during a grow-more-food campaign, schools were encouraged to take students to paddy fields, allow them to get into the mud and understand how farmers till the land.
The farmer, then, was king. Not anymore. Today he is eking out a living, struggling to survive, amidst a mountain of debt. In terms of consumption, nothing has changed since the 1960s; rice is still the country’s staple food.
Except for the use of fertiliser and new machines, nothing has changed in the life of the farmer over the past few decades. He struggles today and, in fact, is worse off than in the 1960s.
Governments past and present have attempted to improve farming as a profession and make it sustainable, without any success. Now comes news that farmers are being encouraged to have a third crop season in addition to the Maha and Yala paddy seasons.
As I woke up late on Thursday morning, the phone rang. The caller was Pedris Appo – short for Appuhamy, a retired agriculture expert who does farming.
“I say, I read some interesting news about a third crop harvest for paddy farmers,” he said after the usual ‘greetings’.
“Yeah, the government is hoping this third crop would help farmers overcome their current debt burdens and also enhance food security,” I said.
“If this works, it would tremendously help farmers who are saddled with debt and just surviving instead of making a profit from farming,” he said.
“That is the plan to help farmers to overcome their current issues plus debt,” I said.
Paddy farming is akin to Sri Lanka’s borrowings. In borrowings, Sri Lanka takes loans to pay off earlier debt and this has become an eternal cycle. It’s the same for paddy farming; farmers have to sell their crop to settle loans and thus the chain continues. Unlike in the past, it’s no more an honoured profession which makes enough money for the farmer and his family.
According to a recent report in the Business Times, a new agriculture policy focusing on entrepreneurial agriculture is to be introduced. As part of this policy, farmers are to be encouraged to farm another season of crops in between the two main harvesting seasons of Yala and Maha.
The report said that this system of “cultivation was a practice carried out in the past and which is to be revived in a bid to increase food production and reduce the prices of certain foods like moong beans”.
The total farm land cultivated for paddy is estimated to be over 700,000 hectares at present. The Maha season cultivation falls during the north-east monsoon period from September to March the following year, while the Yala season is from May to the end of August.
Farming is labour intensive. As at 2022, 26.5 per cent of Sri Lanka’s employed population were in paddy farming. According to the Central Bank’s annual report for 2022 released on Thursday, annual paddy production recorded a decline of 34.1 per cent, year-on-year, to 3.4 million metric tons in 2022. This was a combined outcome of a 36.9 per cent decline in the 2021/2022 Maha season which accounted for 57 per cent of total production, and a 30 per cent drop in the paddy harvest in the 2022 Yala season.
According to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), it is forecast that Sri Lanka’s paddy harvest in 2023/2024 would increase to 4.65 million MT from the estimated 3.77 MT in the 2022/2023 market year.
Farmers are battered by loans and repayment cycles. They suffered tremendously in 2021/22 with the ban on fertiliser use. Loans and multiple approvals for concessions and subsidies are the order of the day, while in water use rights – the last field (to get the water) is always at a disadvantage.
The perennial problem is accessing labour and retaining workers. How do you encourage sons and daughters of farmers to continue the tradition instead of branching out to other jobs? Will ownership of farms help instead of on lease or other rental arrangements?
During the 30-year Tamil separatist revolt, the sons of farmers joined the security forces, while the daughters went into garment factories set up under former President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s 200 garment factories programme across the country. Farming has lost its allure for the sons and daughters of farmers.
There may also be some crossing of farm hands; moving to tea estates which give better wages.
While the new move to create a third cultivation season is one in the right direction, it may be pertinent to take a hard look at farming and compare it with other successful economies. Is there a need for more mechanisation?
One example is a small country like the Netherlands where multiple acres are owned by single individuals and machines are used in production. It is one of the world’s biggest sustainable agriculture producing countries and also one of the biggest food exporters.
Maybe we need to bring farmers under different cooperatives making them stronger as a unit to access goods and services; that is if there are no such cooperatives at present. Rice will always be the country’s staple diet and hence farmers are an important part of Sri Lanka’s food security; it just needs fine tuning to make them profitable and sustainable.
As I typed my column, my attention was briefly drawn to the conversation under the margosa tree. “Ogollo dannawada, den biththara vikunanna yanne bara anuwa misak biththare ganata naeme kiyala (Do you know that eggs are to be sold by weight, not per egg),” said Kussi Amma Sera.
“Eka moda yojanawak-ne. Biththara methak-kal vikunala thiyenne biththara ekaka mila anuwane (It’s a silly proposal. Eggs have always been sold at the price per egg),” said Serapina.
“Kohenda mama nam danne nae, aanduwata mae wage adahas enney (I wonder where the government gets these ideas),” observed Mabel Rasthiyadu.
As I ended my column, Kussi Amma Sera brought in my second mug of tea saying: “Harima rasnei neda (The heat is terrible).”
I nodded my acknowledgment, reflecting also on the need to find solutions for proper rainfall and saving of water during harvesting seasons.