President Ranil Wickramasinghe has started a special program today (13) under his leadership to ensure a socio-economic environment where people can get healthy food even in the event of any crisis that may arise in the country.
“No citizen should starve due to lack of food” and “no child should suffer from malnutrition” is the hope of the President in establishing this mechanism.
A multi-sectoral integrated mechanism to empower rural economic revitalization centers to ensure food security and nutrition was launched here. The relevant mechanism has been implemented through 7 committees.
The National Food Safety and Nutrition Council functions under the chairmanship of the President.
The National Joint Mechanism on Food Safety and Nutrition is chaired by the President’s Secretary and the Food Safety and Technical Advisory Committee is chaired by the Prime Minister’s Secretary.
The Food Security and Provincial Integrated Mechanism is chaired by the Provincial Governors and the District Integrated Mechanism on Food Security and Nutrition is chaired by the District Secretaries. The regional joint mechanism on food security and nutrition is to be implemented under the chairmanship of the regional secretaries.
In 14,022 village officer domains, economic revitalization and food security committees consisting of village officer, development officer, agricultural inspection and production assistant officer, welfare officer, family health worker, principal of the nearest school and two representatives of the local government body have been formed, thus economic revival at the village officer domain level. This mechanism aims to eradicate poverty, free children from malnutrition, and improve food security and quality of life in the area.
On the advice of President Ranil Wickramasinghe, the entire government machinery from the Prime Minister and the President’s Secretary to the village official level, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, professionals and religious leaders have been involved in this program, which is being implemented under the guidance of Dr. Suren Batagoda, Presidential Adviser on National Food Security.
It is planned to produce 3.6 million metric tons of the total rice requirement of the country, 50% of the annual onion requirement and 35% of the potato requirement locally.
This is also planning to produce 20% of the annual soy requirement of 250,000 metric tons in the country by 2025, 20% of the dry chilli requirement to be produced locally by 2025, and the entire requirement of cowpeas, green beans, peas, sesame seeds and groundnuts to be produced locally by 2025.
It is planned to produce 80% of the 650,000 metric tons of maize required annually for the development of livestock such as eggs and poultry meat this year. By 2025, Sri Lanka is expected to grow all the maize it needs locally.
So far, immediate steps have been taken to import 230,000 metric tons of urea, 100,000 metric tons of TSP and 182,000 metric tons of MOP required for the production of wheat and maize in the Maha season under the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Indian credit system and to import fertilizers required for the production of other food crops with the contribution of the private sector.
Facilities are to be provided to buy agrochemicals and organic fertilizers from the market without shortage and it is planned to provide a 50 kg bundle of urea at a fair price lower than the current market price.
The government has already started the mechanism to supply chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizers, agrochemicals and seeds to the farmers through the market at the right time to make the 2022 season a success.
It is planned to bring the products of the agriculture and livestock sector to the production level of the year 2018 and the necessary agricultural inputs including seeds, chemicals, chemical fertilizers, animal feed and fuel will be provided in sufficient quantity.
To achieve these production targets modern advanced irrigation systems and technology are planned to be used.
It is planned to popularize the government’s concept of fertilization and thereby increase production productivity.
What good will this be. Already every MP is supposed to submit an asset declaration with nomination. This never sees the daylight. Tax file and asset declarations of peoples representative should be published to be seen by every citizen.