Communication breakdown leads to confusion:

Plastic crates to be used gradually

The Ministry of Internal Trade’s attempts to reduce massive post-harvest losses in the perishable agro products market ended in failure, market analysts said. The approach was wrong, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa told Parliament. It should have been initiated after an awareness campaign at grassroot level was conducted, they said.

Communication specialist at the Mass Communication Department of the University of Kelaniya, Manoj Pushpakumara said that this is a classic example of wrong communication methods used in development. This issue, has been discussed for decades and attempts to implement, it has ended in failure. The authorities attempted to change the practice that stakeholders have been used over the centuries with the use of force.

The language and tone of high ranking officials has made stakeholders to resist new laws that mandate the use of plastic crates, he said. Well-planned communication campaigns should be used to implement a program of this nature”, he said.

Last week, the whole vegetable supply chain was crippled due to massive protests staged by farmers and traders against the implementation of the law passed in January this year mandating the use of plastic crates for the transport of fruits and vegetables.

On Wednesday representatives of farmer and trader organisations, met President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the parties agreed on a grace period of one month and that the law should be limited to a few perishable commodities, only representative of the Dambulla Special Economic Centre Traders’ Association W. Wijayananda told the Sunday Observer.

We use wooden boxes and plastic crates to transport tomatoes and fruits such as papaya. We agreed to use crates to transport capsicum, cucumber, bitter gourd and some upcountry green vegetables. Beans, brinjals and cabbage are out of the list and now it is optional to transport these vegetables in plastic crates, he said.

Traders proposed alternative solutions and said that the use of plastic crates was not practical under the present market conditions. They said that if the net gain of shifting to plastic crates is advantageous to farmers and traders, there is no need for the government to force them to transport in crates and they will be willing to use them.

They said that the use of 25 Kg small sacks instead of the 50-70 Kg sacks will reduce losses in transportation.