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| Sunday, 16 June 2002 |
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Our own project to free the starving by FACTOTUM Some were white clad zealous promoters of the jak tree planting project. Others were in varied dress, even complete with neck tie. None of them seemed ill fed. That in itself was a good advertisement to propagate the jak eating habit and this not in distant Kahatagasdigiliya but here in Colombo in the heart of the city and the most residential quarter at that, the venue being the high profile centre for international conferences, most wisely chosen. The multiple of one hundred acquired a new significance with the launching of the Hundred Days programme of the UNF government and here we have done even better in planting over a hundred jak saplings that would in time indicate to international delegates who would drive past, another aspect of our national heritage right opposite the flags that would be fluttering in the breeze on those flagmasts; keeping alive our reputation as jak eating giants. The timing of the event could not have been better. The World Food Summit got under way in Rome on the same day. There, it was highlighted that at least 815 million people - more than 15% of the world's population did not have a meal for the night and did not know where the next meal would come from. Now, jak may not be favoured as a night meal but it could certainly serve as the next meal. So our sensors are surely on the button. The Food Summit served as the forum for the FAO chief to lash out at the First World for worsening the world hunger catastrophe with farm subsidies and support policies that deprive the Third World of a fair price for its agricultural produce. Of course, subsidies and support policies are frowned upon by lending agencies when we put them in place. But we are on to futurity. What we promoted is none other than 'The Wonder tree of the future.' If the Food Summit was a coincidence the event marked the fond remembrance of a great patriot who launched the grow more jak campaign. Arthur V. Dias (A.V.D.) we are told was so moved by the sight of a mere cartload of jak timber (not the long wheel based lorry loads of today, mark you) that the grieving patriot propagated jak planting by parcelling out jak seeds and posting them islandwide to landowners who rallied round. The Government of the day recognising the merit of the programme let him do it free of postage. If A. V. D. shed blood, it was to lodge his protest against the state of affairs in that period soon after Independence. He wrote with his bloodied finger expressing his sentiments to the then Prime Minister. He decried the lack of a place under the sun for indigenous culture. In tune with those sentiments he turned down a knighthood and in later years although he identified himself with that government declined to accept a senatorship. So it was a great man's name that is being perpetuated by the jak tree planting programme that would hopefully feed the hungry in the future. Never mind that there were no goviyas at the inauguration. They are sure to take up their mattocks when the project gets underway in due course in the outstations. With the monsoon picking up, climatic conditions favour this thoughtful venture. A redeeming feature is that once jak takes root it hardly needs any tending. That would suit us fine as the old adage goes, about our collective habit of taking things easy. To free the starving then, is surely not imprudence! |
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