Revolutionising Sri Lanka’s agricultural rupee
The global escalation of commodity prices in the latter part of last decade impacted Sri Lanka’s rice market, with retail prices showing sharp increases for the consumer. The regulatory forces with a ceiling on consumer prices and guaranteed price for paddy did alleviate this problem to some extent.
- Effectively managed water supply
- Seed paddy
- Fertilisers
- Farm implements, pest and insect control solutions etc
- Access to finances with least bureaucratic hurdles and at reasonable cost
- Purchase price that reflects both costs and a reasonable return on the investment
- Debt relief
- Financial strength to hold paddy stocks with them to optimise price and maximise revenue
- Living standards that meet their aspirations
- Higher degree of influence in their own affairs
- Independence and inter-dependence within the community
- Tax concessions for farming vehicles
- Availability of land
- Farming knowledge
- Ability to work long hours
- Simplicity of life style
- No access to low cost finances
- Lack of good storage facilities
- Lack of financial power to hold paddy for long periods
- Limited influence in their own affairs
- Often in debt and under obligation to the private paddy buyer
- No say in end consumer price
- Proxy producer for middle man
- Innovate and organise to capture more of the value chain
- Build influence in the paddy chain
- Ensure right price for their paddy
- Profit from any variation in the price of rice
- Build financial strength
- Ensure steady income even after having sold the paddy stocks
- Uplift living standards
- Overall increase in the purchasing power of farmers and benefit for other goods and services sectors
- Create a viable, sustainable and profitable industry
- Attract those who are presently in marginal employ or under employed
- Build and sustain marketing and distribution process
- Establish a pension or provident fund scheme paid for from the profits
- Dividends
- Earn foreign exchange
- Mega rice industrialists
- Power of the existing mega brands
- Administration conditioned to present system
- Import of agricultural products
- Reluctance of younger generation to consider farming as a worthwhile career
- Achieve independence, acquire authority and influence in the production and processing of paddy and marketing, distribution and revenue optimisation of rice and rice products by year 2017
- Adequate funds will be available at low interest rates from multilateral or other lending agencies
- Shares restricted to actual rice farmers only
- Private sector style management
- Acceptance on the fundamentals of becoming organised and creating a co-operative structure by the farming community. This will necessitate developing leadership and support for the organisations.
- Educating and creating awareness among the rice farmer why he/she should take charge of the rice chain.
- Creation of the optimal legal structure to ensure key ownership and benefit of the rice trade remains with the farming community.
- Financial support initially based on non-commercial or subsidised terms from those multilateral lending agencies who claim that their desire is to uplift the poor masses in developing countries.
- Take and develop ownership of milling, storing, packaging facilities, and perhaps also the ownership of logistics.
- Develop branding, distribution and marketing, through own outlets, other wholesalers/retailer and supermarket chains.
- Development of effective payment mechanisms.
- Adopting leading edge information and communication technology (ICT) solutions to support effective overall management practices.
- Gradual and systematic upgrading of quality, varieties and volume of rice of rice produced with export markets in vision.
- Development of supplementary crops and land use to optimise use of marginal lands not suitable for rice for other crops such as vegetables, etc.
- Secure necessary funding to establish and organise
- Defining the optimal legal structure
- Defining the requirements and benefits of owning the value chain
- Develop audio visual programmes explaining the merits of this model, the benefits and what it will do for their living standards.
- Train resource personnel to educate, communicate and get buy-in from the farmers
- Demarcate the main rice growing areas on a set of principles
- Define the current sector in a research based study across the country
- State-of-the-art milling facilities sited based on density of growing, ease of access, transport facilities etc. Consideration must be given to the present millers and how they could compliment the proces
- Proper own storing facilities such as silos for storage of paddy and rice
- Packaging facilities enabling creation of own brand/s
- Transport and other logistics support, both own and ability to secure third party services at competitive rates
- n Branding of rice products
- Develop other rice based products such as rice flour, breakfast cereals, rice flour based products
- Research on product development such as rice flour bread, biscuits, etc.
- Pricing and revenue management strategies
- Develop own retail/wholesale outlets
- Promote to optimise use of rice and rice based products
- Based on research findings work out the acreage to be farmed for local consumption
- Incremental acreage to be farmed with high value varieties with local discerning upmarket segments and export markets in view
- Product development, rice flour, rice breakfast cereals, rice sweets, rice-based bread, rice-based noodles, etc. Product differentiation and creating new products to existing markets as well as new markets will enable to increase the EMR of the marginal unit
- Undertake research to develop new products with both local market and export markets in view
- The need for inter-regional competition to ensure that while the farmer enjoys the benefits, that the consumer too is not disadvantaged and has choice of quality and price in which to choose from
- Computer resource centres to create and maintain all commerce data.
- Maintain all production, consumption, export data and build database which could be used to forecast future consumption patterns and use that data to plan growing rice, other allied products, new product development, etc.
- Develop marketing data with consumer segmentation, consumer needs and wants, etc.
- Optimisation of production from existing acreage
- New land cultivation
- New varieties including those with export potential as well as varieties capable of increasing yield
- Optimising land use by utilising marginal lands and extending the activities of the new organisations to non-rice areas
- Source markets local and international and develop new products
- Aththi Sukha – being in possession of wealth or means
- Bhoga Sukha – being able to utilise same for self and others
- Anana Sukha – not be in debt to others
- Anavajja Sukha – being not a burden to society