Govt. under fire over move to reduce paddy production 

by Maheesha Mudugamuwa-March 26, 2016, 10:14 am

Former Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene yesterday lashed out at Agriculture Minister Duminda Dissanayake over the latter’s decision to reduce the paddy production in the country to ensure good prices for paddy.

Minister Dissanayake said at a meeting at the Anuradhapura District Secretariat on Wednesday that the paddy cultivation should be reduced and farmers should be guided to grow more supplementary crops. The total demand for rice at present was 250,000MT and to meet that only four million MT of paddy was required. But, the production was as high as 4.9 million MT. It meant that there was a surplus of one million MT of paddy production in the country and the surplus was about 25 percent of the total production.

Former Minister Abeywardena maintained that the excess paddy production was only 14 percent and that surplus was negligible.

He told The Island that the paddy production in particular was vulnerable to weather conditions and climate changes and there might be a fall in paddy production due to a drought or flood or both.

The Matara District UPFA parliamentarian, who had served as the Agriculture Minister from 2010 to January last year said it was essential to ensure national food security and the country should have adequate stocks of rice from good harvests to meet shortfalls at other times.

"Someone has misled the Minister Dissanayake with false statistics," Abeywardene said.

He said it was the UNP’s policy to import all commodities but they should keep in mind that imports would be possible only if there was enough food in other countries.

Abeywardena said that today food security was one aspect that the government must prioritise, noting that the country would have to face a difficult situation if it did not improve its own agro-based food production.

Currently, the maize production had been completely stopped and farmers were insisting that they would not cultivate it due to the cut in subsidies which had been given to them earlier and they couldn’t bear the cost of the current production, he noted.