Campaign for rice:

Wheat flour cannot be totally substituted

by Gamini WARUSHAMANA

Wheat flour still dominates and holds its position as the second major staple food of the people in the country despite campaigns that challenge its nutritional value, health issues as well as continuous price increase.

According to import statistics there is no significant decline in wheat flour and wheat grain imports over the last ten years.

There is a fluctuation in wheat imports mainly due to the substitution effect of rice price increase or decline. Wheat imports increase when there is an increase in rice price and vice versa.

Accordingly, our national campaign for promotion of rice as a substitute for wheat flour has not proved a great success.

There are several factors for this failure. Firstly nobody should expect a magical change in food habits of the people. Most of the projections during the last few years in this campaign are mere wishes and not realistic.

It was driven by the new nationalistic thinking in the political arena with some visionaries wishing for a self sufficient Sri Lanka where everyone eats rice and curry all three meals of the day. They forget the fact that people usually get addicted to the taste or other specific qualities of food and beverages and it is difficult to change over night.

The price difference between two food items is also a factor and today this is the only factor that shows a significant impact on demand for wheat flour or wheat flour based food items.

According to the Bakery Owners Association, as the price of kg of rice has dropped to Rs.40-50, there is a decline in demand for bread.

This happens all the time when the price of rice declines. One reason for this shift is that poor people who consumed bread, an inferior food in Sri Lankan culture compared to rice, as they were unable to afford rice, have shifted to consuming rice. However, this trend will not remain forever even it the price of rice remains low over a long period.

Because people also consider convenience and they adjust to new prices over time and return to consume bread. On the other hand the impact on other bakery products made of wheat flour do not change with the change in the price of rice.

The campaign to promote rice instead of wheat had scientific backing and research was carried out. New technology produced food items similar to wheat based food products. However, inherent qualities of two substances cannot be overcome and there were issues. For instance the quality of rice based bread cannot meet the quality of bread produced by wheat and will not be of the quality that our consumers are used to.

Again, the price factor was also not favourable.

The price of rice flour is always higher than the price of wheat flour, unless government imposes higher taxes on wheat.

Another factor is that the quantity of rice produced by the country is not sufficient to keep rice, rice flour and rice based products competitive in the market.

On several occasions we broke the records of King Parakramabahu and declared that we are self-sufficient in rice, but the truth is not so. We still import rice.

For instance today the price of rice has dropped not because we have produced enough. During the first seven months of the year we have imported 123,864 tonnes of rice worth Rs.6.6 billion. Due to this imported rice supply together with the bumper Maha season harvest, today we have an excess supply and therefore a lower price.

This situation will not remain forever and will change with weather conditions and other factors.

On the other hand, although we wish to substitute wheat flour with rice flour, the rice flour industry has not been developed to meet the quantity or quality of rice flour the bakery industry needs at least to try and adjust in making food items.

Similarly the main wheat flour consumers, the poorest people in the estate sector will continue to consume wheat flour based rotti because it is linked to their income, daily routin of work, cost of cooking and other factors.

Inconsistency in policies will also damage this campaign.

A sharp drop in the price of paddy will definitely discourage farmers and paddy production may be affected in the coming seasons.

The dilemma in decision making over interest of the farmers against the interest of the consumers is still prevailing and policies change time to time. For instance, a huge stock of rice has been imported this year considering consumers' interest during the election period.

Rice flour has almost shifted wheat flour in making string hoppers at household level as well as domestic industry level and this can be considered as an area of success in this campaign. This has been successful because factors such as convenience, affordability and availability of rice flour for string hoppers are being fulfilled.

Wheat consumption can be reduced to a certain extent if these issues are considered and addressed. But we will never be able to totally substitute wheat consumption by the consumption of rice.