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President’s Advisor on Food Security Dr. Suren Batagoda
By Shanika Sriyananda
Although ensuring food security and combating hunger were the most challenging issues in Sri Lanka due to the existing socio-economic crisis, under the visionary leadership of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Government has introduced several comprehensive initiatives to enhance food security in the country, President’s Advisor on Food Security Dr. Suren Batagoda said.
“One of the main initiatives taken by the Government is to introduce the National Food Security Act to strengthen food security to maintain its vision – zero hunger, zero poverty and zero malnutrition. This Act will provide a legal framework to ensure food security in the country,” he said.
In an interview with the Daily FT, Dr. Batagoda, who is also the Head of the Food Security Division of the Presidential Secretariat, said the country would be self-sufficient if every citizen grows some food varieties in their lands and home gardens. He also said there would be new laws to make home gardens mandatory under the new Act.
Dr. Batagoda, who is tasked to draft the much awaited National Food Security Act, spelling out the special features to be added to the Act to protect the country’s agriculture sector, said the Government’s priority is to provide an uninterrupted food access to all people including the most vulnerable communities. Following are the excerpts of the interview:
Q: The structure of the Food Security and Nutrition Framework has a holistic approach where all stakeholders are engaged in. Can you explain this?
A: Ensuring food security and combating hunger are the most challenging issues in Sri Lanka due to the existing socio- economic crisis. The UN declaration on human rights has recognised the Right to Food as a fundamental human right. The UN sustainable development goals have set its second goal as ‘Zero Hunger’ by 2030.
Following the vision of President Ranil Wickremesinghe that ‘all citizens have access to enough food at affordable prices at all times for an active healthy life’, the Government has recognised that ensuring national food security is the responsibility of all citizens, including the private sector, NGOs, politicians and all Government organisations.
Therefore, we have developed a framework to include all stakeholders in the country from the head of the State to the lowest level at the Grama Niladhari division and also all individuals in the country.
A Special Combined Mechanism Committee representing the national level was formed while setting up district, divisional and village level committees to continuously monitor the National Food Security program to ensure food security and nutrition in the country.
Our priority is to provide an uninterrupted food access to all people including the most vulnerable communities. The strategy will assure food access to all even in future disruption or unavailability of critical food supply due to various risk factors including droughts, shipping disruption, fuel shortages, economic instability and war.
Q: Once you said there was no scarcity of food in Sri Lanka. Can you elaborate this more?
A: Sri Lanka is a tropical country which is blessed with many resources. We have no deserts and the soil is fertile to grow any variety of food. Sri Lanka has year round agriculture. Therefore, this country has no reason to face a crisis situation that leads to food insecurity. We can be self-sufficient if every citizen grows some food varieties in their lands, home gardens and all spaces available.
I firmly believe that if you take the quantity of food available in the country, we have no scarcity of food but the main reasons for a possible food insecurity situation are the mismanagement in distribution, storage, packaging and other factors like transportation of vegetables, fruits and other staple food between regions and marketing.
Through food security strategy, the Government encourages every citizen to produce some food as costs of logistics like transport and storage can be reduced when people produce food in their own regions. When these logistic costs are not included in food prices, they will be sold at affordable prices.
Q: The approval has been given to import eggs. Do you think with the present dollar crisis, Sri Lanka can rely on other food imports?
A: Sri Lanka doesn’t have to import eggs as the poultry industry is self-sufficient although the sector is facing some problems recently due to shortages which can be rectified. With regard to other food commodities, the country should not entirely depend on local food production as we have to optimise the food sector with correct decisions on what to import and not to import.
The food should be produced maximum locally but the balance should be imported to have a stable food supply. Strategically we might import some foods which are highly expensive if we are to produce locally. The Government has imported 783,418 metric tons of rice (including donations) in 2022. The annual average importation of potatoes, big onions, and dry chilies are 128,000 metric tons, 254,000 metric tons and 51,000 metric tons respectively.
For example, we import 600,000 metric tons of sugar and it is 90% of the country’s total sugar requirement. Although we can promote the local sugar industry, we have to keep on importing sugar to match the demand. We import dhal 100% and the annual average dhal importation is 186,000 metric tons. Therefore, we have to encourage the import of some essential food items to strengthen the country’s food security.
While importing essential food commodities, which cannot be produced locally to meet the demand, we should continue to grow other crops to be self-sufficient.
Q: It is found that lack of proper data has affected in taking right policy decisions and predictions especially in the agriculture sector. Can you explain about the landmark initiative of introducing a mobile application called ‘Food Gate App’ to fulfil this long felt need?
A: Yes, the major challenge in the food security in Sri Lanka is the lack of real time information. The available food stocks in a country are always changing. Once the harvest is reaped, the stocks of those crops will be over within a few months. Most of the data are outdated when these data reach the decision making level.
Since there is no proper data collection system now, we lack real time data on crops to get assumptions, like how much stocks are available in farms, stores and markets, how much to be imported, how much the country needs to feed the population etc. Mostly, this has resulted in poor decision making.
There are various apps being developed by various institutions but there is no mobile app which is collecting real time data. This is the reason the Presidential Secretariat with the support of the Microsoft, Orel IT, Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA), Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SL CERT), Census and Statistic Department and National Planning developed the Food Gate App. This effort of collecting household data on crop cultivation, expected yield, agri-input requirement, food insecurity issues and nutrition data, especially about children with acute malnutrition is carried out every month using the mobile app.
The data collected by visiting every household amounted to 5.5 million using the mobile App by the officers attached to the Village Centre for Economic Revival Centres, which are set up in each Grama Niladhari division with the technical support provided by the Lanka Electricity Company.
This process involves a multi-stakeholder coordination between various Government and private sector organisations and operated by the newly formed National Food Security and Nutrition Data Operating Centre also known as the Green Agriculture Operation Centre established under the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff.
Q: As you said data of nearly 5.5 million households will be stored through this mobile App. What is the guarantee that these data will not be misused?
A: All data is protected under the Personnel Data Protection Act No. 09 of 2022, which has a strong legal coverage. We are strongly following the provisions of this Act. The SLCERT is the responsible institution to validate or approve the App whether it is technically acceptable to the Sri Lankan context.
The ICTA is the agency that will look at the legal aspects that verify that this App has included enough security measures to protect all personnel information that is fed to the system. We are following a highly secured data collection process and no authority has any room to misuse these data.
Q: Another important initiative is the proposed Food Balance Sheet for every household. Can you explain about this in which you mentioned agricultural production of each household will be documented?
A: The Government’s vision is that not a single person in Sri Lanka will be left in starvation. If we want to achieve this, we need to know who has food and who suffers due to lack of food. If we want to ensure food security, a food balance sheet should be prepared for every single household. This is why we have introduced the mobile App to collect data covering 5.5 million households.
In the household food balance sheet, we can find out the food varieties that each household produces, the quantity, their markets, nutrition levels, food requirements of the family, food shortages, the amount of food that they buy from outside etc. If the families do not produce anything and fall into the category of very low income generation, we can identify them as those who are in extreme poverty and are in need of some social support. We also can identify those who have surplus food and also those who are producing some food but solely depend on buying from outside.
This mobile App will also help to identify the households who have lands to grow but have abandoned their lands due to various reasons. If they want some support to start cultivation, we can provide them some support through banks to become agri-entrepreneurs and also technical support.
The ultimate objective of introducing the food balance sheet is to prepare divisional, district and finally the national food balance sheets to strengthen the country’s food security. When we prepare the regional food balance sheet, we can share the food from the regions which have surplus food with the regions with less food quantities.
When the national level food balance sheet is prepared, we can find the total quantity of food available in the country and the total shortage, which will be imported. This will facilitate the Government when taking decisions related to food security. The trade Ministry can make their plans early to import the necessary quantities of food without delay when a food shortage is shown in the balance sheet.
Q: There was an idea of introducing a local brand of fertiliser in Sri Lanka. Will the recently formed Fertiliser Task Force under the Food Security Division find solutions for the conflict between organic and chemical fertiliser producers?
A: Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector is heavily dependent on chemical fertiliser in food production but the last Government has banned chemical fertiliser to promote organic fertiliser. This has resulted in yield losses in many agricultural crops and created a shortage in staple food.
While the conflict between the chemical importers and organic producers still exists, we have formed this Task Force with the objective of bringing both to a one forum to work together to produce a hybrid local fertiliser brand, which can give a high yield.
I believe that this is a good opportunity for them to agree on a locally made mixed fertiliser. Today, we import chemical fertiliser 100% and produce organic fertiliser locally. At the discussions we are looking at ways and means of producing this mixed fertiliser with 70% of chemical and 40% of organic fertiliser. We want to produce this local hybrid mixed fertiliser, which is sold at a low price but gives a high yield.
However, we have to win farmer’s confidence to use organic fertiliser as they had faced serious losses in their harvest in the previous seasons due to the ban of chemical fertiliser
Q: Do you have plans to give some incentives for farmers who are using the hybrid fertiliser?
A: We do not have such plans at the moment to grant special intensives for the farmers who use this hybrid variety of fertiliser. Rice and maize have been considered as two staple foods. Maize is the main food source for the poultry industry. It is vital to control the prices of these two foods to protect the consumers.
However, the Government will continue to provide subsidies for paddy and maize in the future to reduce the cost of production to encourage the farmers and also to protect consumers. These two staple foods have to be affordable to enhance food security in the country. The Government will not encourage farmers on what fertiliser to be used for their crops and it is their free will to choose whether it could be chemical, organic or hybrid fertiliser. We will promote and encourage all farmers who use the three kinds of fertiliser but depending on the marketing strategies of the fertiliser companies more farmers can be brought into the organic fertiliser sector.
For the best interest of the country, we intend to promote organic fertilisers and encourage more farmers to use organic fertiliser as it will reduce the burden on the Government to bring more chemical fertiliser, which is 100% imported amidst the prevailing dollar crisis.
Q: You have mentioned about introducing a Soil Health Card for farmers. How effective is it to make agricultural lands more fertile?
A: There are many claims that the country’s soil has become infertile due to over use of chemical fertiliser. It is also said that the excessive use of chemical fertiliser is one of the main causes for ground water and drinking water pollution, impact on marine, fauna and flora ecosystems and chronic kidney disease among farmer families in agricultural areas. A less percentage of urea will be absorbed by plants when urea is used excessively but the rest will be retained in the soil while some amount will be washed away into water bodies.
The soil PH should be more than four or five for the plant to absorb required nutrients in chemical fertiliser. Before applying chemical fertiliser, the soil PH level has to be improved but without doing this practice for so many years our farmers have just applied fertiliser and obtained low yields.
Therefore, the Fertiliser Task Force has decided to request the Government to introduce a system to issue a Soil Health Card, which is mandatory for all farmlands in the country. This card will indicate the soil PH levels in their farmlands.
Q: Do you think that the much awaited National Food Security Act, which you are tasked to formulate will address many issues in the agriculture sector to have a food secure nation in the future?
A: The main objective of introducing this Act is to ensure food and nutrition security of the people by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices for people to live with dignity.
The obligation of the Government is not to leave anyone in starvation and not a single child under malnutrition. Food security should be ensured under a Special Act to provide a legal framework to ensure the country’s food security. As I have explained before, if the farmers know the soil PH levels in their farmlands they can reduce the usage of chemicals. This will reduce the quantity of chemical importations. Unless the Government implements this regulation by law, the farmers will not heed into this practice. Having a Soil Health Card will be made mandatory under this Act.
There are a large number of lands, which are not used, in the country. We have looked into introducing provisions for the Government to acquire abandoned cultivable lands in an emergency food crisis situation to grow food to feed the nation. These lands will be given to some farmers to cultivate on a temporary basis until the food crisis is over. The ownerships will remain and the lands will be acquired on a rental basis. This will also encourage the owners to cultivate some variety of food in their lands
At present, out of 5.5 million households, the majority are not growing anything in their home gardens. Under this new law, the Agriculture minister is empowered to make regulations to make a mandatory that every household should have a home garden to produce food when the Government declares an emergency food crisis
The National Food Security Act will also come into force when there is an emergency food crisis situation and the minister concerned has the sole authority to implement the provisions of the Act to acquire lands for cultivation.
It has a holistic approach to solve the issues related to food security to protect people from any risks related to food insecurity. The Act has also spelt out plans to have buffer stocks in every Grama Niladhari divisions, preparing food balance sheets, identifying eligible households to receive support to overcome food insecurity situations, provisions to provide cash grants for lactating and pregnant mothers and children with acute malnutrition, preservation and storing of excess food, identifying food items for stable pricing and insurance scheme for small farmers.
