Corona (COVID-19) & Agriculture of Sri Lanaka.

CORONA (COVID – 19) & Agriculture of  Sri Lanka      

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ri Lanka as a prosperous nation since hundreds and thousands of years till now is basically make agriculture as the livelihood of the majority of people in the island. Being an island, the passive environmental conditions bring this prosperity and the collective effort of people having a proud history based on Buddhism. The concept of  ’wewai dagebai- gamai pansalai¶  is the best testimony to show the real Sri Lankan spirit.

           The outbreak of COVID-19 or the corona pandemic which originated in China and spread all over the world together with Sri Lanka has victorious so far in isolating the countries to their own borders and not letting the people to control the nature and to control their own lives. This has created a crisis in the world economy greatly as a result of completely or partially shutting down the factories, manufacture sector, service sector and specially agriculture and distribution fields. This scenario has created a huge impact and diminishing in economic growth of developed countries and the severity is on developing and the underdeveloped countries since the income levels of people has vanished and existence is at a danger. Contributory sectors for national economy, GDP of the countries has collapsed stretching the conditions to bad.

Although Sri Lanka was a self-sufficient country in the fast, the needs and wants of people increased specially for consuming food items also with a huge change in food habits with the introduction of value added and new foods. Also the demand for foods couldn’t be bear by the local supply change where the inability to meet the consumption needs by the local supply paved the way to import goods from international market and the excess of the production of certain foods were exported where Sri Lanka started to trade in the international level with diplomatic policies and involvement. Together with the introduction of open economy after 1978, the culture of previously prevailed export and import of goods  which was solely controlled by the Government changed and the system allowed the private sector to involve in export and import activities under the control and supervision of Sri Lankan government to fulfill the import and export necessities of the country. Due to this new system, the country showed a reduction of its production in agriculture since it can import the goods from foreign even without engaging in cultivation and people started to move to different employment opportunities rather than engage in agriculture, animal husbandry and so on. With this long journey that took place in the history up until now, Sri Lanka could not survive on its own production and even Sri Lanka is importing rice from Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan. Even finger millet and green gram that can be easily cultivated in Sri Lanka are imported at a cost of around 25 and 10 million rupees respectively. We still produce only 60% of our basic food requirement and import the balance at a cost of about 120 billion rupees annually.

The corona virus outbreak is trying to teach the mankind good lessons  since according to scientists and analytics, the emission of harmful gasses has reduced about 90% and the city of ’New-Dhilhi¶ in India which was among the world most polluted gas emitting cities is now a clean city, people in the city can see the blue sky which they had accustomed to witness the brown colored dusty sky. In that focus the international trade has limited and most of the countries have locked down and the production sector has fallen specially stopping and limiting of food production sector that has become a huge threat for the existence in most of the poor countries and FAO predict that if the world unable to control the pandemic condition most of the people worldwide will die not for corona but for hunger. Also the World Bank shows that the developing countries and underdeveloped countries will be at a great threat due to the diminishing of economic growth. Couples with that, Sri Lankan rupee has diminished even more than Rs.200 compared to US dollar for the first time in the history.

Thus the time has reached to re-think the potential of Sri Lanka to produce its own food and start a new chapter in the production chain. In that focus it is obvious the government is taking necessary actions to continue the food supply even within this corona outbreak and to encourage people to grow their own food needs at their homelands. It is a true fact that most of the people in the country are now being employed in several sectors and not in agriculture and now the time has reached to start agriculture at home level since the whole country is to be suffered if the food production stops. 

Under the new program started by the government ’The savbagya gewatta¶ government is distributing seeds and plants that are appropriate to different climatic conditions and ecological zones which can be easily cultivated and even the people in cities can contribute for this. This initial start leads to encourage people and produce our food necessity locally being a support to our family economy and in the long walk it is obviously be a support to uplift the economy of the country. 

Also the relief given by the government for farmers, fisherman and other people who engage in the food production sectors to engage in their relevant sectors without any problem, is to maintain the food supply locally. But unfortunately it is a true fact that even after reporting the first patient subjected to corona disease; farmers are having several problems related to the selling of their products and fisherman who are waiting to sell their fish harvest. The curfew condition in the country has made it difficult to buy and sell products and the dairy production has almost stopped. Thus quick remedies should be made to protect the products and farmer. A positive fact in this regard is that the import of essential goods has limited and even prohibited to import certain goods that are not essential. If this strategy could be continued even after the end of the corona outbreak, it will be helpful for Sri Lankan Government to stop the money that spends for international trade and to produce our own food necessities locally with the potentials we have both natural and human resources. It will show the way to increase the national economy by uplifting the wellbeing of families.  The export market also could be broadening under the improvement of food production sectors and the assistance given by the government can widen the food production there by getting foreign currency to our land by empowering the local public and private sectors and better using of human resource, knowledge and capabilities. 

Further it is a true fact that with the shutting down of most of the factories, the employees have lost their income and it is unpredictable when these factories will open. So this is the best opportunity as individuals to take initial step to contribute to our family, our country. It is a chance to start part of your life as a grower, an entrepreneur, as a person who engages in the production of value added products. For the wellbeing of a country it is very important to maintain economic level stable. In that focus it is a responsibility of every citizen to contribute individually at this problematic situation and this individual level effort make it an effort of a nation to come out of barriers in economic field and especially Sri Lanka being a developing country is at a risk according to World Bank specialists. On the other hand at official levels new policies and systems have to be created to smoothly run the process without many problems and even to manage the food production necessity since food is an essential item in this situation. 

Time has reached Si Lanka to begin a new era   to rise as a country having a   proud self-sufficient economy in the world. Let’s make Sri Lanka a sustainable, self-sufficient and a developed country in the world soon.

                                                                   ______ Supun  Buddhike______