Politics behind Sri Lanka paddy crisis

(August 27, 2010) Sri Lanka’s major opposition United National Party (UNP) Anuradhapura district MP P. Harrison charges that the farmers cannot afford a fair price for their rice harvest as a result of short-sighted policies of the government.

The MP pointed out that the government that was ahead of elections imported 122,330 metric tons of rice from January to May 2010. He also highlighted that 30,000 metric tons out of these rice stocks are still in markets.

The government accuses the UNP for selling 61 of the 378 paddy stores of the Paddy Marketing Board to the private sector. But MP P. Harrison said that some of the businessmen that purchased these building are politicians of the present government.

He also pointed out that the Act of Termination of Paddy Marketing Board was tabled in the parliament in 2000 by the present Prime Minister D.M. Jayarathna.

The farmers in the major paddy cultivating districts of Sri Lanka lament that they are unable to find a fair price for the harvest of the Yala season. Yala is not the major harvesting season and farmers faced less difficulty in other Yala seasons to sell their produce.

Posted in paddy , Paddy Marketing Board , rice farming , rice harvest