Sri Lanka is one of the signatories of the UN mandate on Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture is the second sustainable development goal.
Working for zero hunger and achieving this goal was the theme of World Food Day 2018. Wasting less, eating better and adopting a sustainable lifestyle are key aspects in building a world free of hunger. Simple actions of achieving this goal are reducing food waste, producing more through productive ways, adopting healthier and sustainable diets and working together through partnerships.
Sri Lanka has made significant progress in reducing poverty over the past decade. The national poverty headcount ratio (HCR) declined from 22.7 percent in 2002 to 4.1 percent in 2016, with the majority of districts in the country showing a substantial decline in their poverty levels. The country also achieved the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 target of halving the poverty level, well before 2015.
However, malnutrition is an issue in Sri Lanka; 17 percent of children under the age of five are stunted, 15 percent are wasted, and 21 percent are underweight and in districts like Nuwara Eliya, 29.6 percent are underweight.
The domestic agriculture sector in Sri Lanka is characterised by small-scale farming. Agricultural productivity suffers severe losses because of high temperature, severe drought, flooding, the rising sea level and soil degradation. This article describes the importance of food security information and early warning systems to ensure food security in the country.
Present situation of food security
Agriculture plays a central and strategic role in Sri Lanka’s development. Today, 27.1 percent of the labour force in the country is engaged in the agricultural sector. Indeed, it is the key to economic growth, increased incomes, improved living standards, poverty eradication, and enhanced food security. In fact, most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have direct or indirect linkages to the agricultural sector in the country. The goal number two is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. The theme of World Food Day which fell on October 16 was “Our actions are our future. A zero hunger world by 2030 is possible.”
The ratio of expenditure on food and drink to total expenditure is called the food ratio. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of the Census and Statistics Department (DCS) 2012/13, the average food ratio is 38 percent and this means an average household in Sri Lanka spends 38 percent for food of the total monthly expenditure.
When considering food ratio by sector, in the estate sector it is the highest – at 49.8 percent, in the rural sector – 39.2 percent, and in the urban sector – 32.1 percent. This implies that a household in the estate sector spends nearly 50 percent of its expenditure on food.
The climate changed rapidly and the country faced extreme weather frequently during the last few years than ever before. In 2014, both Maha and Yala seasons were affected by severe drought which prevailed throughout the year. Thereafter, 2015 was a very satisfactory cropping year and both seasons performed well and the highest ever paddy production of 4.8 million MT was recorded and a bumper harvest reached the markets.
However, once again, at the beginning of the 2015/16 Maha season, flood damage was recorded. The 2016 Yala season also was not quite satisfactory due to the floods which prevailed at the beginning of the season.
In 2017, the drought took its toll during both Maha and Yala seasons. In the recent past, the lowest paddy production of 2.5 Million MT was recorded in 2017. The production of most other food crops also declined sharply. The delay and insufficient monsoon rains severely affected paddy and other field crop cultivations in most of the major producing areas in the country in both seasons in 2017. As a result, domestic prices of essential food commodities, especially rice, increased rapidly in the market.
The price behaviour of most food commodities in 2017 was volatile and reflected an increasing trend throughout the year. The weekly rice price behaviour of nadu Grade II rice (parboiled long grain white) is shown in Figure 1. The price of local nadu rice in the last week of September increased by 33 percent and 43 percent compared to the same period in 2016 and 2015 respectively.
The rate of food inflation calculated by the DCS (Year to Year) recorded in January 2017 was 4.5 and reached 10.4 in September and this was mainly due to the price pressure from rice, coconut, vegetables and onions. In 2017, to stabilise increasing food prices, the government intervened in various ways like promoting imports, import tax reductions, introducing food price ceilings, releasing government stocks to the markets and distributing food items at subsidised prices through government trading institutes like the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment. However, in 2018, food production was moderately satisfactory and food inflation has at present reduced.
Impacts on food security
The above situation affects the four dimensions of food security: food availability, food accessibility, food utilisation and food system stability. Effects have already been felt in food markets, and are likely to be particularly significant in specific rural locations where crops fail and yields decline and in urban locations where supply chains are disrupted and market prices increase. The most vulnerable in this situation are low-income consumers and small- scale farmers.
Importance of food security information
The availability of reliable data, statistics and information related to the four dimensions of food security and the adequate capacity to analyse the available information and good communication skills to inform decision-makers are the major determinants of food and nutritional security in a country.
The data and information related to food availability include domestic production, import capacity, food stocks and food aid. The domestic production data comprises the cultivated land extent of major crops in each cropping season at the divisional secretary’s (DS) level, crop damages, average yield, total production, marketable surplus, major surplus and deficit areas. This needs an efficient data collection and a monitoring system at village level, especially as the calculation of food surplus or deficit depends on such data.
Next, data on domestic and commercial stocks by District or DS level and government buffer stocks are important. Domestic stocks available with farmers and commercial stocks available with major manufacturers like rice millers and traders by district level need to be monitored frequently. Another is availability of imported stocks and food aid given by various local and international agencies at provincial or district level.
Food access refers to the way in which different people obtain available food. Normally, food is accessed through a combination of home production, stocks, purchase, barter, borrowing, sharing, gifts from relatives, and provisions by welfare systems or food aid. Food access is ensured when communities and households and all individuals within them have adequate resources, such as the money to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Access mainly depends on income available to the household and the price of food.
Market prices reflect the supply–demand situation of food commodities and therefore, accurate prices are the most important. Market margins and value chain analysis of food commodities are other related types of information. The Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI) is a well-known organisation for collection and dissemination of food commodity prices in all major markets in the country.
HARTI provides a detailed description of weekly commodity price behaviour in the country and disseminate daily vegetable prices in all dedicated economic centres through a mobile service provider, Mobitel, on the hotline 6666 as a public–private partnership. Such price information is valuable for farmers for increasing their bargaining power with traders and also finding better markets.
In this process, there is also a need to monitor the commodity prices by divisional secretariat level mainly to identify the food security situation in isolated rural areas like estate areas especially during food shortage periods. Therefore, the collection, monitoring, analysing and presenting of food prices at the grassroots is an essential part of food security. This information is helpful in predicting the situation, to identify vulnerable areas, and to plan intervention programmes.
Stability of supply and access: this explains the variation of weather during the main seasons, commodity price fluctuations, and economic and political factors which lead to stability of supply and access to food.
Weather-related data are an important part and that valuable primary information is entirely collected by the Meteorological Department of Sri Lanka. Commodity price data is mainly collected by the Census and Statistics Department, HARTI and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
Food utilisation mainly consists of food safety, hygiene and manufacturing practices applied in primary agricultural production, harvesting and storage, food processing, transportation, and retail. Diet quality and diversity, meeting needs in terms of energy, macro- and micronutrients are the major concerns in food utilisation. In this category, post-harvest losses, practices of all actors from farmers to retail in food supply chains, and factors contributing to quality deterioration are important. Food nutrition data are an integral part of food security and such data should be collected through research and demographic health and household surveys. This type of data and information is compiled by the Health Ministry, Medical Research Institute, DCS and universities.
When considering our country, many actors hold information about the food and nutrition security situation. The integration of those actors and holistic approaches through this information need to be strengthened. Therefore, now is the most suitable time to establish a common framework to ensure coherence.
Common framework
A common framework will be helpful to identify information gaps, areas of repetition, to make predictions through the analysis of weather, production, consumption, prices and income-related data, and to issue early warnings. Furthermore, a broad variety of methods and tools for food security and nutrition monitoring and analysis should be better harmonised for greater efficiency.
The scope of a common and harmonised framework of information for food and nutrition security necessitates ensuring that high quality data and availability of statistics and information is easily accessible across sectors for monitoring and analysis of the food security and nutrition situation.
A common and harmonised framework also necessitates ensuring that available food and nutrition security data, statistics, and information are well-analysed to meet the needs of a variety of decision-makers in a timely and credible manner for policy formulation and investment decisions aimed at hunger eradication and towards strengthening institutional structures for easy exchange and coordination of information for consensus building and harmonised approaches.
This type of integration is really helpful to policymakers to cope successfully during disasters and long-term planning. Therefore, establishment of a fully integrated food security information and early warning centre will ensure food security in the country.
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