Citizens initiative to salvage Sri Lanka

Maubima Lanka:

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Rice has been the staple for generations of Sri Lankans before the introduction of bread to Sri Lanka by the European nations. Perhaps it was the Portuguese who, at least, exhibited to the Sinhalese what is now known as bread and wine.

When the king's men saw Portuguese sailors partaking a meal of bread and drinking red wine, they reported to the king that strange white-skin sailors eat crystal or stone and drank blood. Before long that 'stone' became an indispensable staple on Sri Lankan dining tables and wheat flour from which the bread is made finds itself into the nook and corner of the land, from the richest to the poorest of the poor.

Wheat flour is used to produce variety of food stuff from roty (toasted dough of flour), cakes, buns to traditional food such as string hoppers and hoppers which were originally made of rice flour. The breakfast and dinner of most of the middle class families in Sri Lanka is made up of bread and a curry.

While enjoying a slice of bread or any food stuff made of flour, Sri Lankans conveniently forget the inconvenient truth that each bit of wheat flour is responsible for widening the budget deficit and contributes to keep Sri Lanka as a developing country.

According to Central Bank annual report (2006), Sri Lanka spends US Dollars 1, 980.2 million on importing consumer goods including wheat four and milk powder while the export earnings from agricultural exports is US Dollars 1, 292.7 million.

According to Ariyasila Wickramanayake, a successful Sri Lankan entrepreneur who is spearheading movement 'Maubima Lanka', a citizens initiative, Sri Lanka can extract itself from the vicious circle of poverty if each and every Sri Lankans is ready to forego foreign food and started to consume Sri Lankan food which is as nutritional as food imported from far away lands.

"As the country is in a dire situation, we, senior citizens, thought that we should make this country debt free so that the next generation can live comfortably. When we looked at the Central Bank statistics, we spend a staggering sum of US Dollars 1,980.2 million on importation of basic food and other imports such as oranges, canned fish which we do not have to import.

What we need is mainly Carbohydrate, fat and protein which is readily available in Sri Lanka. We spend a huge amount on import of food and milk powder. For instance, 450 million dollars is required to complete the first part of the Hambantota harbour which is equal to the sum spend for three month's food imports.

So why are we borrowing, we only tell the public, children, their parents, stop foreign food for three months, we will save that money and build Hambantota harbour with our own money," Wickremanayake said with a firm resolve.

The Maubima Lanka is spreading the message ?buy Sri Lanka and grow Sri Lankan food. Among the children and parents. Although Japan is one of the leading industrial countries, it has not neglected its agriculture and the entire food culture is based on rice as Japanese make Sakai from rice and imposed heavy import tax on rice.

However, in Sri Lanka a common sight is piled up junk yards from Colombo to Kandy consisting rusty car parts signifying country's over reliance on imports. Currently Sri Lanka's export earning from three main crops, Tea, Rubber and Coconut is 1,292.7 million US Dollars which will not suffice to cover half of the expenditure incurred by importing basic food stuffs.

"We are importing fish and food. Two third of our land is under Tea, Rubber and Coconut and we are getting only 1,1000 million dollars and our food bill is 1,980 dollars which is double the amount of total foreign earnings.

There is no point in importing Tea, Rubber and coconut, if you are consuming foreign food. We have to stop this because we have enough food in the country. For instance, in Singapore their staple food is bread fruit because they have nothing else to eat in that country.

We do not want to be a Singapore because they are importing and exporting. Our economy is agriculture. We have sea right around the country and we are importing 70,000 tones of canned fish. I have been telling the Central Bank and Treasury that the country has to produce its own food.

This comes in two different ways; Americans called it food security or self-sufficiency in food or eat your own food, said Wickramanayake emphasizing the fact, if a country needs to be strong, it has to be self-sufficient in food.

He is of the view that the country can also be self-sufficient in milk if we rear a cow at household level like in India. Although the urban population could not rear a cow, they can purchase fresh milk from neighbouring villages, thus creating a chain of job opportunities from the milkmaid, drivers who transport milk, to vet-surgeons who care for the cows.

People living in flats can not do this, but those who are in suburbs like Ratmalana, Maharagama, can rear cows. If India can be self-sufficient in milk, sugar and food for thousand million people, we, Sri Lankans, can do it for nineteen million people. We have all the potentials and could be rich in one Yala season.

When we all consume our food, farmers will grow and the product is sold, they grow more and more. What happens today is four seasons, paddy in stores and no person buys because bread is cheaper than rice.

We want our five million children in schools and ten million parents to consume Sri Lankan food. If we do this today, we can reap the benefit tomorrow, said Ariyasila Wickremanayake explaining the immense benefits that the nation can reap from a seemingly insignificant action on the part of its citizens.

"Maubima Lanka" with the slogans "Buy Sri Lanka" and "Grow Sri Lanka" will not only be able to free Sri Lanka from the clutches of the vicious circle of poverty but also from the mind-forged manacles of blind faith in foreign food that everything from foreign soil will be good and of high quality.

The movement is an eye-opener for each and every Sri Lankan that foregoing foreign food will not only help free Sri Lanka from foreign debts but also help generate much-needed job opportunities for generations of youths.

"Maubima Lanka" is a citizens movement with the backing of successful Sri Lankan entrepreneurs and leading civil society personalities such as Cargill's Managing Director Ranjith Page, DSI Managing Director Kulathunga Rajapaksa, Managing Director of Pellawatte Sugar and Master Divers Ariyasila Wickremanayake, Vice Chancellor of the Ruhunu University Prof. Ranjith Senaratne, SEMA Chairman Willie Gamage and Permanent Secretary of the Industrial Ministry.

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