Agriculture: Rebuilding the foundations

“A rationale for such policies is propounded in the form that paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka is "inefficient", that we must give way to "comparative advantage" and that our food security lies in the wheat fields of North America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Studies carried out by the Agrarian Research & Training Institute (ARTI) through five seasons over ten years ago, initially in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of Washington, D.C., proved the contrary and quite conclusively at that.”

__________________________________

by Gamini Seneviratne

(March 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The foundations for all forms of agriculture lie in land, water, seed or breeding material, and the technologies of farming. Since the cash economy has penetrated everywhere, those foundations need to be cemented by what is loosely termed ‘profitability’. Over the past three decades or so those foundations have been purposively undermined by governments that claim to have at heart the welfare of the people they claim to represent.

It is no longer necessary to spell out all the steps they have taken. Suffice it to say that the efforts made (1) to transform land and water into marketable commodities, (2) to lock farmers within the clutches of seed companies, (3) the encouragement given to the use of toxic chemicals banned in the countries of origin, and (4) the dismantling of marketing mechanisms, constitute the principal strategy employed to cripple domestic food production. Besides such measures, (5) hindering the availability and flow of credit,(6) the import of food items produced here at harvest time, (7) the manipulation of import tariffs on them as well as on equipment used in production and processing, and (8) taxation on transport have all worked towards underwriting a policy of sabotaging our capacity both to feed ourselves and to provide productive employment for the bulk of the rural population. The following map, prepared by the World Food Program, gives a rough indication of the extent of food insecurity across the country.

Those who advocate IT and the sweat-shops of the garment industries as the more productive alternative to "subsistence" farming - so characterised by them - need no reminding that pauperising farm families will provide cheap labour elsewhere plus land and water at give-away prices.

A rationale for such policies is propounded in the form that paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka is "inefficient", that we must give way to "comparative advantage" and that our food security lies in the wheat fields of North America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Studies carried out by the Agrarian Research & Training Institute (ARTI) through five seasons over ten years ago, initially in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of Washington, D.C., proved the contrary and quite conclusively at that. When a full-fledged mission from the World Bank raised this question I pointed out that an FAO study had shown that it costs the farm-gate price equivalent of 1.2 tons of rice to produce a ton of rice in the USA - which is the second largest exporter of rice in the world. In response to the query: where then did the comparative advantage lie? the Mission leader had the grace to withdraw his argument.

The grand coalition of Multi National Corporations, the IMF and the World Bank is seen today as the Big Bad Wolf across the globe. That is not entirely true. They could not have got as far as they have without the submission of UN Agencies and supposedly National Governments to their designs. Nor were their efforts to take control over the resources of sovereign peoples a straightforward march to domination; there were hiccups, none perhaps as volcanic as yet as those in Argentina.

The ultimate objective of transnational capital however was clear from the start - as could be seen in the analysis by G V S de Silva, probably the most perceptive economist we have had, of the World Bank’s first Mission Report on Sri Lanka in 1952. My own interaction with these agencies and their surrogates dates back to the late 1960s and the formulation of the Master Plan for the development of the Mahaweli: their hopes were at that time more naively incorporated in their recommendations than they have since become. The nature of their footwork, the relative intransigence or aggressiveness of component elements in that coalition, and the processes of suborning public servants, and of politicians through them, has become clearer over the years. Successive governments have succumbed to the gonibillas of ‘growth’ and voluntarily placed the people in debt to agencies that are no more ‘donors’ than the old Afghan moneylender - but with lots of other strings attached.

You might find it difficult to conceive of a government elected to office by you proceeding to undermine the foundations of your wealth and security. But such has been the case. Some of the measures that have been adopted are not decisions originated by politicians; they are rather the product of individuals, be they regular public servants or hold permanent residence status elsewhere, who have been placed in key advisory positions. It is no secret that such persons have been and continue, to date, to be handsomely rewarded for their efforts by ‘governments’ and ‘donors’ alike. The World Bank itself, unlike the ham-handed ‘enforcers’ of the IMF, has generally been more aware of ground realities and therefore more flexible than such officials want the political decision makers to believe.

Officials who are willing and, depending on their formal and informal relationship with, let us for convenience say, their Minister, are able to advance such an anti-people agenda, reside in the Ministries of Finance and Policy Planning, and in the line Ministries that cover the agriculture sector. Chief among the latter, naturally, are the Ministries that deal with domestic agriculture and animal husbandry, the plantations (tree crops), fisheries, forestry and irrigation & water management. There are others though that also play a vital role: one has only to contemplate the effect of privatising the Ceylon Electricity Board which has operational control over the largest reservoirs, to see that the proposed ‘privatisation’ of water would be half completed.

In the midst of all this we find the Central Bank willfully failing to make certain connections. One would expect it, for example, to give prominence in its Annual Reports to the import value of the rice produced here. Or to the fact that over 60% of our tea is produced by small-holders in the Galle, Matara, Kalutara and Ratnapura districts - and not by the plantation companies that enjoy many privileges denied the small-holders. Or the net-earnings, in foreign exchange terms, of each group. I have not seen even a computation of such figures in those Reports.

It is therefore a pleasing change in approach to factors that affect our agricultural economy that we note in the manifesto of former govt. the United People’s Freedom Alliance. The specifics of the proposals made in it obviously need to be developed further, clarified, and made more consistent each with the others. Its emphasis on subsidising the mechanisation of farm operations, for example, does not sit well with the project for organic farming or the development of animal husbandry. One of the successes of the Mahaweli Project, since allowed to fall into decay, was the Draught Animal and Dairy Development program, and the highest paddy yields (over 6 metric tons) under the Mahaweli have been achieved using organic fertilizer. It must be kept in mind that corrective measures take time: in the case of livestock development it could be fifteen years as new stock has to be imported; the restoration of processing and marketing facilities for paddy could take up to five years, and so on. But, if manifestos mean what they say, this would certainly be a start.

It was also refreshing to note that those who drafted this manifesto have been conscious of the need for rebuilding the institutions in this sector. The first among them would surely be the Department of Agriculture. It was dismantled, on the dictates of external agencies, and in the face of protests, by the most distinguished public servants in that field. To no effect known to its principal clients, the farmers who, despite the most strenuous efforts of their (and our common) enemy, have plodded on, betrayed all the time. The reference in this manifesto to the need for institutional change, demands applause. The fragmentation of the Dept. of Agriculture needs to be reviewed: it created Director-ships by way of purchase and split the Department into bite-size pieces for privatisation some way down the road. A Director-General who retired not long ago vandalised the Quarantine operation at Katunayake before he left. Several D-G’s also turned a blind eye to the failure of the International Rice Research Institute to return 400 of some 2200 varieties of rice native to this country that had been given to it for ‘safe-keeping’. Such people are still at large, expecting further rewards no doubt.

That Department was denied resources on the ground of ‘lack of funds’, but, e.g., a Treasury that was so broke it could not spare 10 million to support the Departmental seed farms, found itself able to contribute 100 million rupees to a private seed company. The agricultural extension service was destroyed at village level. Putting it back together again should not take long: in-service training, or retraining, of field staff as well as farmer training would also require the revival of the Practical Farm Schools. Radio and TV, obviously, could be used more extensively to provide ‘distance education’ at school and village level. The ARTI was converted from a research and training institute into a service station for the Ministry, the particular services demanded changing over time. Let us hope that more positive changes are on offer across all the institutions in the agriculture sector.