Campaign for People’s Solutions to Food Crisis proposals and the petition

Proposals

Food prices have begun to reach unprecedented levels. Prices of rice, wheat flour, bread, milk, coconuts, coconut oil, and dhal have increased two, three times during the last year or so.

For the poor people who are already spending 80% to 90 % of their income on food, these price increases are totally unaffordable. 

About 46% of the population in Sri Lanka receives incomes less than the world’s poverty line of US $ 2 /day. About 30% of the children below 5 years of age are malnourished. These children do not have the required development of their brains and of physical growth. A large proportion of such children is stunted and is wasting. 

A majority of the people in the country do not have the required per capita Calorie intake of 2030 K.Cals /day half the population receive only around 1,600 K.Cals daily. This situation is one of killing the future of the nation. 

We are facing serious health problems such as malnutrition and anemia due to lack of food and nutrition and also a host of other diseases such as Diabetes, Kidney failures, heart diseases, cancers and loss of immunity due to unhealthy, chemically contaminated, food. Spread of such diseases has reached alarming rates. 

In such a state the current trend of food price increases has created a near famine among some people in the country. We also have to consider the extremely high rate of inflation where people have to face unbearable increases in the overall cost of living. This situation should not be left for  political party debates alone.   

World Food Prices will continue to remain high  

All experts worldwide have predicted that this crisis of high food prices, globally, will continue. This is due to the behavior of  the big businesses of the world, who only look at possibilities of maximizing their profits, even when the world’s poor are facing a serious food crisis. Land that can be used to produce human food is being transformed into bio fuel production  on a massive scale. There is a rapid process of growth in converting wheat, maize, sugar cane and other food into biofuels.  

Much of human food in the form of grain is converted to animal feed since meat eaten by richer people brings more profit than low price human food. Use of agricultural land to grow animal feed, compared to human food production is increasing. 

Food production is damaged also due to climate change caused by global warming. This is due to increased emission of gases such as CO2 and methane from industry and agriculture and deforestation that is done in a manner that damages nature’s functioning. Hunger is aggravated by droughts, floods, storms, changed weather conditions and reduced crop yields caused by these factors.  

Increase in urban population compared to the rural, contributes to higher food prices. In 2008, the world’s urban population has become equal to the rural population and this is predicted to increase further. Thus the numbers of food producers are decreasing in comparison to the food consumers. 

Due to increasing prices of fossil fuel, there is an increase in prices of fertilizers, and all other agro chemicals which contributes to food price increases. Since all these factors have come together it is said that world food prices will not come down in the foreseeable future. 

As a way of solving these problems, 

Campaign for People’s Solutions to Food Crisis…. proposes…… 

A new approach to be carried out by small farmers, island wide……

Making the best use of nature’s contribution, towards improving the regenerative capacity of the soil and of nature, to improve food and nutrition, to improve availability of healthy food at affordable cost , minimizing losses caused by soil erosion, droughts, floods , earth slips and other environmental losses, reduce diseases caused by pollution and unhealthy food , reduce poverty, unemployment and indebtedness. It is an approach making use of the diversity of successful experiences of regenerative / ecological agriculture in Sri Lanka and in other countries, based on the latest conclusions reached by scientific studies…….

1. Food crisis can be solved by an approach to agriculture based on small farmers. A majority of farmers in Sri Lanka are still the small farmers living in rural areas. These farmers are capable of adopting methods of farming in their small plots, preventing soil erosion and of improving the natural fertility of their soils, making full use of bio diversity by adopting mix cropping, reducing crop losses by pests, increase food availability at low cost. This is an ecological approach. By adopting these approaches in their home gardens and in farm plots throughout the country to improve fertility of the farms it would enable the recovery of the regenerative capacity of nature in the whole country. This would mean a massive transformation of the way agriculture is done in the country today. In order to encourage all farmers to undertake this transformation, it would be useful to stop the massive expenditure incurred today on chemical fertilizers and other agrochemicals and granting these savings directly to the farmers who are undertaking the above transformation in their agricultural land. This transformation will be a massive saving to the national economy and will have numerous other benefits.
   

2. There are a very large number of officials, working at various levels, attached to the Ministries and Departments of Agriculture and Agrarian Services. They have tremendous strength and opportunity to decide the direction that agriculture in Sri Lanka should take.

It is necessary to build an extensive process of study and dialogue among these officials ranging from higher ranking officials and experts to the agriculture instructors and extension workers at village and regional levels, about the way agriculture in the country should be done.

           There are many programmes now being implemented throughout the country
            which aim at eradicating poverty. The Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu ( Let’s
            grow and Build the Nation ) programme aims at building 4 million home gardens.
            This means that every family is advised to build their own home garden and their
            small scale farm land. “Gemi Diriya” works in 5,000 villages at present and
           “Gama Neguma” intends to work in 4,000 villages in its first phase. The above
           approach of low cost, ecologically sound, mixed cropping agriculture can be
           applied in all these villages and all farm plots, if the officials responsible for
            guiding the farmers adopt correct approaches in agriculture, in instructing the
           communities that are leading these programmes

3. Land Ownership : Ownership of land  should be granted to farmers for food production in a manner that would not encourage or compel these farmers to sell their land away. Most of the small farmers with small holdings in rural areas are engaged in domestic food production. The World Bank in its policy recommendations report “ Non Plantation Sector Policy Alternatives” in 1996, said that this was low value crop production which does not help in growth in the agricultural sector and recommended that there should be a shift to high value commercial crop production. It also recommended that since paddy was a low value crop its production should be discouraged. The recommendation of the WB was to create a “free land market” to enable these small scale rural farmers to sell their land and move out of agriculture. For this purpose it was recommended that all these small farmers should be given clear , tradable land titles. Accordingly, under WB advice various governments attempted to do this through programmes such as “Swarnaboomi”, “Jaya Boomi”, “Ratna Boomi”etc. These were efforts to give tradable land titles to farmers. Now the same is being proposed through the programme named “Bim Saviya”.
   

It is necessary to give real and stable ownership of land to the farmers. However, if it is done with the intension of expediting the process of farmers selling their land away, to achieve bigger land concentration in the hands of bigger operators, with rural landless destitute migrating to urban areas,  with no livelihoods, it is  totally destructive.

There is a global trend today, of increasing numbers of destitute migrants to  urban areas. It the rural population migrates to cities due to availability of more attractive livelihoods it is a different matter. However, such a situation does not exist either in Sri Lanka or in most other countries of the world. We have experienced in Sri Lanka several occasions when young people aspired to migrate to urban areas looking for better livelihoods. We have had two serious youth rebellions in the recent past, when such aspirations could not be fulfilled. About 10,000 lives were lost in the 1^st youth uprising in 1971 and in the second uprising, between 1988 – 90, the number of youth who disappeared was around 60,000. One major reason for the ethnic war in the North launched by the youth was that they did not find opportunities for attractive livelihoods and employment either in the rural areas or in the cities.

We do not see any reason to expect a rapid process of industrialization and of such economic growth in the country in the foreseeable future, that could provide such urban employment opportunities.  Therefore it is necessary to avoid any compulsion on the rural small scale farmers to sell their land plots and become cheap labour or destitute in urban slums. It is essential to make the rural agricultural livelihoods more attractive and remunerative. This could be an effective means to solve the problems of agriculture and food in the country, there by to achieve a socially acceptable process of development in the country. Policies necessary for such a process should be worked out and set in place.

The view that large scale industrialized, external chemical input dependent, agriculture is more efficient than small scale farming has now been proved to be a myth. Even institutions such as the WB have had to admit that small scale farming is more efficient and that such small scale agriculture can make a much larger  contribution to reduction of poverty. In this the WB has had to admit that that their open market policies and plans that have been pushed in many countries for decades have failed. 

It is true that a family can not survive only on a very small plot of land. The solution to this could be for communities of such small farmers working on small plots of land adopt an  approach where a  cluster of such farms and communities of such farmers to work collectively, using mixed / diversified cropping and to adopt systems of cooperatives in their production and in marketing. Such methods of farmer cooperatives are done effectively by small scale farmers in countries such as China, Vietnam and Japan.  

Granting small farmers tradable land titles without building such a situation would lead to farmers, who are presently in serious debt due to extremely high costs of fertilizer, pesticides, seeds and other inputs,  being compelled to sell their land to pay back debt and migrating into urban areas as destitute looking for other livelihoods.

4. Protecting Seed Resources :  Seeds and planting material are necessary for agriculture just as much as sun light, water, soil, and air is needed for sustaining nature’s functions. Human kind and all other life forms have survived for this long due to the ability of nature to constantly regenerate it.

The TNCs that have acquired control over the production and marketing of seeds, for the sole purpose of profit making, have begun to produce and market seeds, that are said to be high yielding varieties. What they have begun to do is to acquire intellectual property rights and a monopoly over seeds converting natural seeds that have the ability of regeneration into varieties without this ability so that the farmers have to buy these seeds from these companies every season.  This amounts to a destruction of natural ability of seeds to regenerate.

Green Revolution that was launched worldwide after the Second World War resulted in a massive loss of natural seed diversity. In its place a type of agriculture that essentially, depended on artificial seeds, chemical fertilizer and other unhealthy chemical inputs, which were also very expensive, spread throughout the world. In Sri Lanka this process of the Green Revolution began around 1965 and through this we lost a large variety of indigenous paddy and other seeds. Today this destructive form of agriculture has depleted our soils and their natural fertility and made agriculture completely unaffordable to the small and poor farmers.  It has now begun to create a host of health problems due to pollution of water, soil, food and environment. 

In the recent times the seeds that are being marketed by big seed companies are all F-1 varieties where the seeds can not be used for a second generation. These seeds have been intentionally made unfertile, thus unusable by the farmers for a second generation. Farmers in Sri Lanka have been making use of good seeds selected out of their previous harvests, preserving them for use in the next season and for future use. This practice has existed for thousands of years.  Today the seed companies have been given a free hand to spread the use of these unfertile seeds.

Earlier it was the responsibility of the Government to produce good quality seeds and to ensure that farmers have easy access to such seeds at affordable prices. Instead, the policy of allowing seed production, importation and marketing, to be taken into the hands of a few companies who have only profit interests is a removal of the right to food and right to agriculture. These destructive policies and plans have to be removed immediately and new policies and programmes for protection of natural seeds and their propagation should be put in place.

The efforts made by the big seed multinationals of the world such as Cargill, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Shell to have a monopoly control over the world’s seeds should be defeated in the name of survival of humankind.

The easiest, the most efficient and convenient approach to protect the indigenous seed potential would be to encourage every home to produce the seeds and planting material that they need for their own home garden or the small farm. Traditional ways of seed preservation and seed selection  are still very valid. 

Spreading of Genetically Modified Seeds has to be rejected: 

The agribusiness transnational corporations ( TNCs ) and the powerful States such as the USA that promote such agribusinesses are making a tremendous effort to promote genetically modified seeds and food in place of natural seeds and food in the name of solving the food crisis. African Continent is becoming the latest target of this process with the proposal for a  New “African Green Revolution”( AGRA).  Some of the richest businesses in the world such as the bill gates foundation and also the former Secretary General of the UN, Coffi Annan behind these plans.

There is a great degree of fear and uncertainty around the world about genetically modified food, seeds and life forms and possible repercussions. What is very certain is that this will lead to a complete monopoly control over seeds and future food in the hands of the richest agribusiness TNCs. This new developments will have worst implications on the poor and hungry people than the first green revolution. We in Sri Lanka have to be alert about the danger of such processes taking control over Sri Lankan Agriculture. For all these reasons it is tremendously important to protect and propagate indigenous seed resources in the country.

5. Priority should be given to domestic food security and people’s food sovereignty, over export oriented commercial farming, in the allocation of land and other resources. 

All governments of Sri Lanka from Independence until 1977 have adopted a consistent policy of making Sri Lanka  as self sufficient in food as possible, and of providing food at affordable cost to all people of the country and providing reasonable prices to small farmers for their products. Supporting and sustaining small farmer agriculture was a policy that continued through out this long period.

On the advice of the WB, all governments since 1977  have moved away from the above policy Show alldirection. The instruments created for such policies have been dismantled. The policy that was carried out through out the last 30 years by all has been one of providing incentives and advantages to private businesses and foreign investors to develop commercial agriculture for export. These included granting of land and large tax concessions and also infrastructure facilities such as irrigation, transport in the form of high ways, expansion of airports, harbors, electricity etc. Some large companies such as PRIMA and Unilever etc. have been given monopoly control over the market and even direct subsidies. These costs have been borne with large borrowings made mortgaging the people of the country.

However, none of these policies have succeeded in achieving their objectives so far. The efforts made to invite foreign investment to promote new export crops such as gherkin, melon, baby corn, tobacco and cut flower have failed too. Instead what happened was to give large extents of agricultural land to companies for mono-crops such as sugarcane, much against protests by farmers.  These were not for export, but for the domestic market These companies were brought in with agreements that offered them much higher prices for sugar they produced compared tot the international prices of sugar.  The consumers pay exceptionally high prices for sugar as a result of these agreements.

WB that recommended for several decades, that higher priority be given to exports than to domestic food production, has now changed its position and has been compelled to admit that domestic food production is more important than exports in the wake of the current high food prices globally.

However, the damage caused as a result of neglecting domestic food production during the last 30 years and the withdrawal of government policies and support given to such domestic food production over these decades is severe. It is necessary to compensate for these losses immediately and people of the country have a right to demand that the international institutes that guided this damage should take responsibility to compensate. The important lesson to be learnt is that the time has come for us to be free of the advice and pressures of the WB and other IFIs.

6. The domination over agriculture and food marketing, by private businesses should be abolished
   

     The biggest obstacle that we have today, to build a type of ecological / regenerative agriculture that people can afford and can be very successfully done is the power of control that big private companies and other private businesses have acquired over agriculture and marketing. Some of the agricultural scientist and advisers have begun to work for the interests of these businesses. Although the government publicly says that it is possible and necessary to move away from expensive chemical fertilizers the Agriculture Department does not, yet, provide necessary guidance and instructions to farmers on how this is to be done. Instead

      the Agriculture and Agrarian Services  Departments have permitted the agrochemical companies to promote  such uses making use of such government machinery. All public media are totally utilized for such propaganda by these companies without any obstacle. Some of the Agrarian services centres are utilized as distribution centres for such agrichemicals. Commissions are paid to the departments and their officials on the basis of quantities marketed by them. 

     The control and domination of private companies in marketing of food is similarly very powerful.  For instance the collection of domestic milk is controlled by 4 private companies.  

The biggest obstacle faced by milk producer farmers in Sri Lanka in getting a reasonable price for their produce comes from the monopoly control that these companies have in purchasing milk. Although the Government has declared a price of Rs. 40 / liter of milk, this price is never given by any of these companies. 

The monopoly control that a few powerful middlemen have over the purchasing of paddy and marketing of rice in the country  has imposed unbearable burden both on paddy farmers and on rice consumers in the country for quite some time.  It is possible to find a massive relief and an easy solution to the food crisis in the country by freeing both farmers as well as consumers from this private sector domination over agriculture and marketing.

Permitting and facilitating companies such as Unilever, Nestle, Cargill, CIC and Coca Cola to use their tremendous power of advertising to distort the food habits of people has also contributed tremendously towards weakening domestic agriculture and food production by small scale producers.

7. Government must intervene in strengthening small scale farmers and fisher people and in giving them a reasonable price to their produce.

The measures that were taken by previous governments through the Paddy Marketing Board ( PMB), Marketing Development Board ( MDB), National Fisheries Cooperation, National Milk Board and The Cooperative Whole Sale Establishment ( CWE ) and similar institutions to ensure reasonable prices both to producers and to consumers were progressively abolished over the  last 30 years on the advice and influence of the WB and other IFIs. It was insisted by the WB, then, that the private sector would do a better job in setting better prices compared to what the Governments could do. However, some of the high officials of the WB have recently admitted that it has not happened as was expected.

Instead of making space for stronger intervention by the public to make such institutions function better these institutions were either privatized or were closed down. This has made a big contribution to the present increase in food prices as well as in weakening the small scale producers further.


Although it was subsequently decided that the government should intervene in purchasing paddy and selling rice at controlled prices, even today the government allocates finances sufficient to purchase only 5 % or less of the paddy produced by the farmers .These allocations are generally released far too late and funds are not transferred to the purchasing areas in time. Proper machinery has not been set up to do the purchasing effectively from producer farmers. Thus even today this takes place in a manner that enables the private traders to have their way to the disadvantage of the farmers and the consumers.

In the recent seasons some private companies purchased large stocks of paddy to be used for animal feed.Since import prices of such animal feed have increased tremendously, these companies have resorted to stockpiling paddy which is suitable and essential for human food to be used for production of poultry food.

Therefore it is necessary that the government should adopt measures to purchase paddy at a price higher than the price offered by private traders, ensure that this money is sent in time and facilities are made available to farmers to sell their produce easily. It is necessary to adopt legal measures to prohibit essential human food to be purchased for animal feed.



These policies should be adopted not only in relation to paddy but also to other food such as  fish, vegetables, fruits and milk as essential measures to encourage food production in the country and the food producers. The resources committed to such measures should not be considered “subsidies but as investments essential for strengthening food production.

Protecting and Strengthening of small scale fisher people

An essential component of our food and nutrition is supplied by the small scale fishers in the coastal regions and in the inland fisheries.  The coastal fisher population is over 150,000 families. 

The use of destructive and illegal fishing equipment by some who are in the fishing industry has become a serious threat to these livelihoods and the industry. The fisher people have been long demanding that effective measures be adopted to prevent this. These prohibitions should be effectively carried out. 

The Governments have been attempting to build tourism zones on the coastal belt and to introduce large scale industrial fishing recently. Especially in relocating people who were affected and displaced by the Tsunami they have been resettled at distances away from the beaches that makes it impossible for them to continue their fishing livelihoods. This was done intentionally in order to create space for expansion of tourism zones and also to invite large fishing companies to engage in large scale industrial fishing. This has resulted in the coastal fisher communities losing their livelihoods and also losing their hereditary right to the sea and the beaches. 

These policies have to be changed and policies that would ensure sustainable use of fisheries resources, with due protection given to the livelihoods of traditional small scale fisher people and contribute to the food and nutrition of the people in the country should be adopted. 

Construction of the Tourist Bridge in Arugam Bay under the Master Plan of building tourism zones was done as a part of recovery  after Tsunami.  US $ 10 million was spent on this by USAID. It was an unjust decision to consider this as part of a relief programme after Tsunami. This was a great injustice committed against large numbers of people who are still struggling to build their lives after this disaster. There were proposals for building 15 such tourism zones, on the coastal belt,  included in the rebuilding plans after Tsunami. These investments have to be directed towards the wellbeing of the fisher people and for building sustainable fishing industry and livelihoods in the country. 

It is essential to ensure that fisher people have the right of access to the sea and to water sources for their livelihoods. It is necessary to take immediate measures to ensure that the fisher people who have lost such access due to the high security zones and other prohibitions be provided these rights with proper security and protection.  Further it is also necessary to ensure that these people have sufficient opportunities for marketing their produce. 

8 Granting land rights to plantation people for their food, nutrition and life as dignified citizens of the country: 

People in the plantations have made the largest contribution to the earnings of the country for a very long period of over 175 years. There should not be any further delay in providing them the required food and nutrition, education, health facilities, proper housing and also the right to land as enjoyed by all other citizens of the country. Although tea planters still earn very large profits the plantation owners do not agree to give plantation workers a livable salary, a salary worthy of their work. All other agricultural workers in the country earn wages more than Rs. 500 /day. However women and men workers in the plantations receive only Rs 200 /day. Considering the food prices today this is not at all sufficient.  Plantation workers as well as all other workers in other sectors has a right to receive salary increases in accordance with the cost of living increases. Food and nutritional status of the plantation workers and their families have remained one of the worst in the country for very long. They should be provided with access to land in order to use the same for improvement of their food and nutritional status, growing vegetables and fruit and also having animal husbandry. 

Presently, about 25 % of the land in the plantation areas remain uncultivated as unfertile land.  This land should be cultivated  “Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu” ( lets grow and build the nation ) programme has declared that land that is left uncultivated would be acquired and given over for cultivation.  This should be carried out in the plantation land too. 42.9 % of plantation young men and 57.1% of the plantation young women remain unemployed. 

Converting the hill country into a conservation Zone  

It is essential to convert the entire hill country in to a conserved zone in order to protect the entire ecology of the country. This is essential to improve the catchments areas, reduce floods and droughts and also the land slides that are becoming more and more intense and regular. The regions of high slopes have to be converted in to useful agro forests. All other land could be used for mixed cropping with soil conservation measures. They should be areas where harmful agro-chemicals , fertilizer and weedicides are avoided. By doing this it would be possible to give plantation people, good nutrition, health and dignified, worthwhile living conditions.

If plantation people are given right and access to land where they live, with proper guidance and assistance about how land is to be used they would also make a very valuable contribution to the sustainable development of the whole country, economy and ecology and food availability, improve quality and availability of water, healthy food and fertile soil for the whole country. This is also essential for these people to feel that they are genuine citizens of the country. 

Building right type of agriculture in the hill country is essential for recovery of the regenerative ability of nature 

Agriculture and life will survive only as long as the ability of nature to regenerate itself survives. Clearing the entire hill country to grow monoculture coffee and then tea for purposes of maximizing profits was one of the starting points in destroying the nature’s ability to regenerate itself. Recovery and restoration of this ability of nature to regenerate itself should be the most important principle in our agriculture. It should be the most fundamental philosophy in our future agriculture.  An essential aspect of this approach should be to convert agriculture in the hill country into an approach that recovers and protects the regenerative capacity of nature. 

It is also necessary to bring conservation of this type to the hill country which is our first source of water, in order to prevent the diseases such as kidney failures and other illnesses caused by poisoned water and poisoned food that are reaching epidemic scale in the North Central Province and in other areas. 

If we are to assess the economic benefits from such a process of transformation we have to count the benefits of improved soil fertility, improved water conservation and retention, improvement in food and nutrition ( particularly of the low income earners )contribution that would be made to agriculture in other parts of the country, health benefits, and the contribution that would be made towards reducing global warming and increase in the forest cover  etc. This should be assessed and compared with the profits earned today by a few plantation companies. 

9. Women’s contribution and role 

Women’s contribution to agriculture and food has always been very high, especially the contribution that women could make in building conservation and regeneration in agriculture. The women can make a tremendous contribution in small scale agriculture , in home gardens and in small plots of land. It is recognized world wide , through experience, that women have made a valuable contribution in history in seed conservation, protection of bio diversity, and in food sovereignty. There role as protectors of life has acquired greater importance in a world where life is endangered. 

During the last 30 years of market led policies in Sri Lanka women have been looked upon only as cheap, subservient labour, to be used to encourage investors and businesses. As the rural economy began to deteriorate further the women had to sell themselves more as cheap labour as housemaids in the Middle East or in export oriented garment industries.

Instead of looking at women as cheap labour, the role they could play as planners and implementers of a process of recovery of regeneration of nature in agriculture should be recognized. Such a transformation will provide better opportunities for women to play a more dignified role in society.   

10. The potential of regenerative agriculture in providing dignified livelihoods and life of satisfaction to youth: The task of transformation 

Our society has not yet succeeded to find an effective  way to solve the problem of youth unemployment and to understand their proper contribution to society. All parents and about 4 million children attending school aspire to achieve higher education as a means of  obtaining dignified professions with sufficient remuneration. 

About 250,000 students sit for the G.C,E. Advanced level exam every year. During the last years about 119,000 students passed this exam with sufficient marks to enter universities. However, universities admitted only about 17,000. Therefore, over a 100,000 very intelligent and hard working young people are rejected with no future plans. Even a greater number of them is rejected in their earlier years of education. 

In building an appropriate path for Development in the country, utilizing the advantages we have in our natural resources, with necessary conservation and sustainability will provide solutions to the food crisis. What we need in Sri Lanka is a type of agriculture that would recover the regenerative ability of our land, water, plants and animals and of the environment. For this kind of “Development” it would be necessary to bring about a tremendous transformation in the way we have been doing agriculture and the way we have been working with nature.  

The youth of the country have a tremendous potential to be a force for the above transformation in agriculture and in the way we deal with nature, if they are equipped with the required scientific knowledge, skills and attitude. This will provide the youth with satisfactory livelihoods as guides and contributors in this process of transformation. This social contribution and mission will attract them. Through such a process the overall productivity of land and environment will tremendously increase which will make it possible to provide young people with satisfactory remuneration. It would not be difficult to give this youth who are bent on ecological / regenerative agriculture the necessary knowledge and experience in such agriculture by providing them the required higher education opportunities in this subject. The young people today are moving out of agriculture because of its  poor quality and due to the poor social recognition that it has. Low returns is another factor. However, the modern scientific ecological agriculture that is emerging globally and the role of pioneering such a new trend has the potential to become a very different type of dignified profession.

 

11. Providing relief and meeting the urgent requirements of the working class and the urban middle class

The policies of all governments until 1977 were to maintain a cost of living that was affordable to the working class and the urban middle classes too.

What happened for 30 years since 1977 was totally different. All governments since then have spent large amounts of money to provide incentives and concessions for growth of big private sector businesses and to attract foreign investment into the country. Poverty did not reduce as a result. The burden of these expenditures and loans taken are being borne today by poor working people in urban and rural areas and the middle class. The continuation of the same failed strategies even today the people have been burdened further with a cost of living that is completely beyond their capacity. This in no way is a policy that the country can afford. 

It is necessary to stop further borrowings at increasing interest rates, in order to provide further concessions and facilities to the richest people in the country and to potential foreign investors. It is essential to bring down the cost of living to levels affordable to ordinary people. The additional expenses that the Government may have to incur on bringing down cost of living should be looked upon not as “subsidies” but as useful investment for sustenance of people’s lives and for social stability. 

The contribution that such people socially satisfied and healthy, would make towards a healthy process of development would be a tremendous asset. We believe that the contribution that people, the ordinary working people including women and youth , in rural, urban, coastal and plantation areas could make towards food production, nutrition, and towards improving overall productivity is capable of overcoming the present crisis faced by the country within a relatively short time. 

12. The government should intervene in ensuring healthy food at prices affordable

      to the poor   

By implementing the above plans, we believe, that an agriculture that is able to provide plentiful, healthy food, without the use of external chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides and commercial seeds with damages described so far, and with less use of fossil fuel could be built, within a relatively short time. 

Until this is achieved, tha Government should take immediate measures to essential food available to people at affordable cost. The poor people can not afford to buy their rice requirements at Rs. 60 /Kg. at all. The hunger and malnutrition that would result from such high costs is bound to lead to very dangerous results. 

Therefore a rice rationing system should be introduced. The low income earning sectors of society that should receive such a rice ration should be identified ( such as the urban and rural poor, the plantation workers, low income earning urban population, , mothers and children who face food and nutritional deficiencies in such areas etc. ) and rice and other essential food should be provided to them at affordable cost. Suitable approaches should be developed in the country to enable these categories of people with low cost, healthy food in sufficient quantities. For this purpose it would be necessary to develop proper direct marketing arrangements between the producers and consumers making use of systems such as cooperatives. Such arrangements would reduce the need for continuation of the above systems of food subsidy for a long time. 

Towards building a broad movement of the People across the country 

The implementation of such a set of proposals would  be effective,  if such action is initiated by a large number of people’s organizations that believe in this approach. 

To achieve this, we suggest  

Building a process of detailed discussion on the proposals contained in the People’s Memorandum (Petition) , in all Districts and Provinces, through a collective of People’s Organizations in such areas 

Adjusting these proposals to be more relevant and applicable to the conditions and requirements in those particular areas and preparing plans for implementation

Collecting as many signatures of the people as possible to the Memorandum in order to bring the attention of the Government to the proposals

Creating awareness among people, people’s organizations, government officials,  intellectuals and scholars , making use of the successful experiences of ecological / regenerative agriculture presently done in various parts of the country 

Building ecological agriculture programmes and such areas making use of the programmes presently intended to reduce poverty such as the Samurdhi Movement, Api Wawamu- Rata Nagamu  programme, Gemi Diriya and Gama Neguma

Collecting, conserving and propagating indigenous seeds and making use of the

Indigenous, traditional knowledge in such agriculture that are still relevant. Rejecting the use of varieties of commercial seeds that can not be used for repeated planting ( F-1 varieties ). Overcoming use of unhealthy agricultural inputs and reducing external inputs 

Organized intervention to influence government policies, where necessary  

 

Text of the memorandum ( petititon ) 

Campaign for People’s Solutions to Food Crisis ( CPSF )

1. Type of agriculture where small scale farmers play a lead role is the only effective

           way to solve the food crisis. It should be environmentally friendly (ecological) and

            should be a way of rebuilding the capacity of nature to regenerate itself.Resources

            spent on fertilizer subsidies and other chemical inputs should be given directly to

            farmers engaged in such ecological agriculture 

2. Ministries of Agriculture and Agrarian Services and the Departments  should be

             reoriented  towards promoting such an approach in agriculture and food

             production. Programmes for rural poverty alleviation such as “ Api Wawamu

             Rata Nagamu”, Gama Neguma, Gemi Diriya and Samurdhi Movement should be

             changed into programmes geared towards such agriculture.

3. Land rights and ownership of land, necessary for food production  by farmers engaged in such natural farming should be ensured in a manner that would not compel or encourage them to sell their land away., under adverse circumstances.
4. It should be government policy to protect and propagate  indigenous, domestic  seeds with capacity for repeated planting ( regeneration ). The commercial propagation of seeds that are useful only for one generation should be prevented.
5. Priority should be given to production of food for the people of the country over commercial export oriented agriculture in allocation of land and resources
6. The domination of companies and private businesses over agriculture and marketing of food should be abolished.
7. The government should intervene in strengthening small farmers and small scale fisher people and in giving them reasonable prices for their produce.
8. The use of illegal fishing gear should be stopped. Expansion of tourism zones and large scale industrial fishing that destroys the livelihoods of small scale fishers should be prevented. Resources that are presently being used for such purposes should be utilized for conservation of aquatic resources and for sustainable development of inland and coastal fisher people. The right of such fisher people to have access to the sea and inland fishing areas and to sell their produce must be ensured.
9. The war contributes to massive destruction of life and economy. Declaration of large areas of land and the sea  as high security zones in the war affected areas has become a serious obstacle to the lives of people lining in these areas. Since marketing facilities in these areas are lacking people face serious difficulties in their livelihoods and in food. These have to be remedied through negotiated settlements to the conflict.
10. People in the plantations should be provided land in order to meet their food and nutritional needs satisfactorily and for them to have lives as dignified citizens of the country. Salaries of plantation workers as well as of all other workers should be increased in relation to the increase in cost of living

11. The working class and the urban middle class has found it extremely difficult to face the current economic crisis. Immediate measures should be taken to meet their needs.
12. Agriculture, which rebuilds the regenerative capacity of nature, has a tremendous potential to provide respected livelihoods and a life of satisfaction to large numbers of youth who are now compelled to unemployment and urban migration. They must be provided with necessary understanding, education and facilities for this purpose.
13. The massive loans taken to build express highways, international airports and harbours and other infrastructure development projects to make the country attractive to foreign investment have contributed tremendously to indebtedness of the country. This should be stopped. Development should be primarily based on people’s strength and should be people friendly.
14. Government should intervene in ensuring that the poor people have healthy food in sufficient quantities at affordable prices.

 

Finally, the solution to food crisis is in preventing the destruction of lives of the majority poor people in the country through war, and by building a broad People’s Action that ensures their full participation, full contribution of their knowledge and labour in a manner that ensures direct ownership and control of agricultural land, water, seeds, and other requirements in the process of production, such as  equipment and knowledge. Such a People’s Action should also mobilize people to pressurize the government to bring about a restructuring of government institutions, introduce policies and allocate resources for such a process.  

July 19, 2008

Posted in food security , Sri Lanka