Combating food and medicine shortage in Sri Lanka

Deshiya Waidya Kalutharage Sampath

Frances Bulathsinghala

Harendra Prasad Kumara

Pannilage Podi Wedamahattaya

• Enhance knowledge and action; do not give in to fear psychosis or dependency

The way forward for Sri Lanka to combat any looming food crisis is not to give in to global dependency, fear psychosis or inertia, a segment of Sri Lanka’s traditional knowledge practitioners stated last week. 

Traditional knowledge, local nutrition and indigenous health promoters speaking at a forum held last week asserted that Sri Lanka needs to ensure that knowledge is shared island-wide to educate policymakers, the media and the public on the vast local food and medicinal resources available locally.

“To plunge people in prophecies of doom and gloom or to go to the world with the begging bowl for food is not the solution. The way forward is for those who hold responsible positions in Sri Lanka to educate themselves on the vast amount of traditional food and medicinal resources in the country,” said media practitioner and researcher of Lankan traditional knowledge, Frances Bulathsinghala at the first in a series of online sessions, initiated last Thursday with the technological support from the Mass Communication Unit of the Open University of Sri Lanka themed ‘Combating food and medicine shortage in Sri Lanka’.

Bulathsinghala, the main organiser of the series, said Sri Lanka can no longer continue with the inane imperialist view that traditional knowledge is irrelevant to modernity or continue to ignorantly tout it as backward.

“A country with a goldmine of indigenous heritage knowledge pertaining to food and medicinal security can no longer ignore its national value,” she said.

The Lankan food and health knowledge series is to be held regularly and will seek out the multiple dimensions of relevant local practical expertise connected to national food and medicinal security, promoting awareness on areas such as local, environment based foods, traditional health systems, traditional farming and water conservation.

The Lankan food and health specialists who spoke at last Thursday’s event appealed to policymakers and the media not to create fear psychosis or a dependency mentality on international food and medicine assistance without recognising the inherent resources of Sri Lanka.

Food security, medicinal security, current relevance of traditional water tanks (wew) and a COVID time initiative promoting indigenous medical expertise were among the topics covered at the event.

Speaking on the topic ‘Re-looking at the definition of medicinal security in Sri Lanka’, Sri Lankan Traditional Medicine expert, Deshiya Waidya Kalutharage Sampath explained the importance of policymakers and the mass media comprehending that ‘aushada’ (medicinal drugs) cannot be narrowly interpreted.

“Medicinal drugs should not be seen as being within a particular monopoly. If this has been seen as normal in the past this ideology has to be changed to understand the economic and health consequences,” Waidya Kalutharage Sampath said, stating that national awareness is needed that traditional curative methods and medicinal resources are relevant for every common disease ranging from diabetes to heart disease.

“Nittawata Suwa Kireema (curing permanently) is the way of our Deshiya Chikitsa. We do not maintain diseases for life. This is not accepted in either our medicinal, cultural or religious tradition,” Waidya Sampath said. 

“In our curative system we do not depend on someone else to give/send/import us the medicines. Historically Lankan paramparika wedakama gave utmost importance to the personalised manufacturing of medicine which is from nature and the physician took responsibility for the ‘aushada’ (medicinal drugs) we provided,” said Waidya Kalutharage Sampath, referring to Sri Lanka’s ancient tradition of medical science, Deshiya Chikitsa, also referred to as Sinhala Wedakama.

He further stated that there is a fear-psychosis created today concerning both food and medicine. He pointed out that this is because the concepts of both food and medicine are understood only within a particular mental or ideological lens. This interpretation has prevented Sri Lanka from policies which could have been put in place to nationally promote and earn international revenue from the unique local medical heritage, he said. He also spoke of the immense boost to tourism if Sri Lanka made publicly known the number of foreigners from developed countries seeking out rural traditional paramparika Deshiya Waidya specialists and getting fully cured by them for illnesses the Western world could not cure.

Waidya Kalutharage Sampath had during the height of the COVID-19 virus fully cured patients without oxygen, deemed as too old to be treated in the hospitals practicing Western medicine. He said that those who are concerned about Sri Lanka’s future cannot ignore the macro economic link with its traditional knowledge, especially at a time of global viruses. He emphasised that Sri Lanka could not yet again afford to be caught unawares by dubious viruses and said the local traditional medical experts were already researching symptoms of some of the viruses spreading currently globally. 

Speaking of the relevance of demystifying wew (traditional Lankan water tanks) and the link with national agriculture, Mass Communication practitioner and Godakawela Pradeshiya Sabha development officer Prasad Harindra Kumara explained his initiative taken around 10 years ago to create a wewa (a traditional water tank) to supply water to a mass scale cultivation done by him and other farmers in the village of Sankapala in the Embilipitiya region. 

He explained that a wewa should not be defined in the same manner that some may describe a swimming pool. “I carried out this initiative only with the support of the area people. What we must learn as a nation is that a wewa has a particular philosophy and ideology around it. This is linked with our agrarian national consciousness which was part of national food and economic policy. Our ancient monarchs and our ancestors did not build wew to be coveted selfishly for personal use. A wewa is not a personal swimming pool. It is a community initiative – built by the community for the community.”

He explained that he may have taken the decision to construct a wewa as an individual but that the rest of the process and the benefitting from it is a community centred matter.

He stated that Sri Lanka should stop viewing wew as something built only in the ancient past, urging for understanding the significance of traditional water tanks for agriculture, soil fertility and economic stability of present day Sri Lanka and the fact that this culture can be revived.

“I appeal to all Sri Lankans at this time to understand that we do not have to beg from other nations. We have every single resource we need within this land to ensure our food security,” Harindra Prasad Kumara said, warning against the poverty of the mind concerning local knowledge. He reiterated that agriculture should be correctly seen as a lucrative and honourable occupation entwined with the national economy of the nation and said that the false view that chemical agriculture inputs is fully compulsory should be challenged by example. 

“It is foolhardy to even think that decades of chemical agriculture addiction could be eradicated from the soil or the minds of Lankans within weeks or few months. It takes a dedicated plan and the current predicament we are in, we should remember to begin to care for the soil of our land as our ancestors did,” he said. 

Speaking on the topic ‘Local foods, Agrarian Security and the link with health and economy’, local agriculture and Sri Lankan food knowledge/food entrepreneurship activist, Arjuna Pannilage, known as Pannila Podi Wedamahattaya spoke of the almost limitless range of Lankan foods that is vastly present in the natural environs of Sri Lanka. 

Referred to in Sinhala as ‘parisaragatha ahara,’ he explained that these are often un-recognised as food which also double up as curatives but consistently destroyed as weeds or wild trees.

“We now think that food in Sri Lanka is limited to bread, dhal or potatoes. The fear that Sri Lanka will face a food crisis can manifest into reality only if we continue to be afflicted by this ignorance,” he said. 

He said Sri Lankans should try to understand that there is food and that there is medicine all around us in this land we are upon, which we do not know of.

Arjuna Pannilage reiterated that Sri Lankans will starve only if we wallow in misery, inertia, fear and dependency. He said that there are hundreds of plants and trees that spring up naturally and are generally thought of as weeds by especially urban dwellers which are all food. He cited the Kebella, Kadupahara and Monarakudumbiya plants which grow wild as three examples which double up as both food and medicine. 

He noted the importance of focusing on cultivating food such as traditional yams and tubers which do not need chemicals unlike the potatoes we eat commonly. He emphasised that almost every vegetable we purchase is cultivable even in pots and that it can be incorporated into landscape and interior design. He spoke of the importance of conserving deshiya beeja – the traditional varieties of vegetables which are resistant to tough climatic conditions and do not need artificial fertiliser.” He brought attention to the thousands of jackfruits rotting unused each year and the fact that Sri Lanka could create ample local food industries from jackfruit alone. 

Meanwhile the story of the only Sinhala Wedakam/Ayurveda hospital in Sri Lanka that emerged out of the COVID-19 scenario initially to treat COVID patients was narrated by founder of the Sinhala Weda Uruma Baraya and the Lak Suwa Sahana Maha Weda Gedera, a registered hospital in Kelaniya, Eng. Harsha Kumara Sooriyarachchi and Hospital Director, Deshiya Waidya Dulari Matararachchi.

“We commenced during the COVID-19 time when Sinhala Wedakama (Deshiya Chikitsa) paramparika wedakama was not encouraged. We mobilised many intellectuals and our Lankan paramparika medicine practitioners at a crucial time to put our medicinal heritage to practice and show its modern relevance,” Sooriyarachchi said. “If Sri Lanka had promoted the Sinhala Wedakama during the time of COVID as a formal policy decision we could have easily prevented over 15,000 COVID deaths,” he said. 

Deshiya Waidya Dulari Mataraarachchi spoke of the national role of correctly understanding the value of Sri Lanka’s human resources in traditional medicine and interlinked food expertise at a time when Sri Lanka was facing medicine shortages and when there were fears of new viruses emerging in the world. 

“While we have specialised treatments for all illnesses, our traditional food is also our medicine. We should not take this knowledge lightly at a time when our country needs it most,” she said. The hospital director of the Lak Suwa Sahana Maha Weda Gedera, Dulari Mataraarachchi said that the hospital collectively represented a panel of over 40 physicians practicing Sinhala Wedakama who in turn represent many generations of the Paramparika Wedakam tradition.