Sri Lankan Farmers On The Warpath Over Cheap Indian Imports

Sri Lankan farmers are on the warpath against low priced agricultural imports from India that have flooded the countrys markets, causing a glut in their own produce.

After months of protest campaigns against the duty-free potato and chilli imports from India, the government has imposed a 10 per cent import levy on chillis from India, but local farmers bodies here are not satisfied.When the commerce ministry allowed free potato and chilli imports from India, the market was flooded with the cheap Indian farm produce, even as the locally grown crops remained unsold. This drove a farmer to suicide at Eppawala, 170 km northeast of Colombo, triggering massive protests in Sri Lankas chilli growing areas.

 

The farmers of Eppawala marched to the governments agriculture purchase office and burnt a huge quantity of chillies in protest. As the protest mounted, the trade and commerce ministry announced the 10 per cent duty on Indian chillies. It is too little, too late, said a spokesman for the Rajarata Farmers Organisation (RFO). The farmers will have to wait for a considerable period until the imported stocks are exhausted and then only they will be able to well their produce, he said.

RFO purchased a small quantity at Rs 90 per kg to help the farmer, but we are unable to purchase the whole lot, the RFO spokesman said. A spokesman for the government sales network, Ceylon Wholesale Establishment, said they too found it difficult to buy at a higher price when private sector retailers were selling Indian chillies at much lower prices.

Prices should be brought down by an efficient system of marketing coupled with proper storage system, not by asking the poor farmer to enter into an unfair competition with foreign products, the RFO spokesman said.

The government has opened the doors blindly under the guise of free economy, said former deputy minister of agriculture H M A Lokubanda. Seventy per cent of the work force in Sri Lanka are farmers and it is the duty of the government to look after them before thinking of open economy and regional cooperation, he said. Under the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement, Lanka has agreed to allow several Indian agricultural products, including chillies and potatoes duty-free entry.

Regional cooperation could be beneficial to a very great extent, said an editorial of the Island newspaper, but we must not commit harakiri. The protests have led to a clash between two cabinet ministers. While agriculture minister D M Jayaratne has been fighting for safeguarding local farmers by banning agricultural imports, Trade minister Kingsley Wickramaratne believes bringing down prices through duty-free imports.

The Rajarata area in the North Central province alone produced over 50,000 tonnes of dried chillies during the last season. The duty-free Indian imports pushed the prices for Sri Lankan chillis from Rs 60-90 per kg to below Rs 40.

Meanwhile, protests against inadequate irrigation facilities are also gaining ground. Agitating paddy cultivators in the South forced the opening of sluice gates of storage tanks to get water for their fields.