brand logo

Food shortage: CAA to gazette new regulations this week

26 Jun 2022

 
  • Rice only for human consumption, not animal feed
  • Urges public to report hoarding of rice and grains
  • Provide alternatives for animal feed: Poultry Association
By Asiri Fernando   The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) will gazette new regulations this week, which will make it compulsory for wholesale traders to share details of their grain stocks with compliance officers, The Sunday Morning learns. The move by the CAA is aimed at ending the hoarding of rice and grain by wholesale traders and others, which aggravates food shortages and causes prices to skyrocket. CAA Chairman Shantha Niriella told The Sunday Morning that the authority was in the final stages of drafting the gazette and that it would be released this week. “Many wholesale traders do not share details of their stocks with us, therefore we need to update the laws in this regard and get them to comply with our request for information. The laws we have now are not sufficient. We conduct raids on suspected warehouses based on the information, so this is important to stop the hoarding of rice, which artificially adds to the shortage, thereby causing prices to increase,” Niriella said. The CAA urged the public to report individuals or groups that were hoarding rice, adding that some members of the public were also worsening the food crisis by stockpiling more than what they needed in fear of a shortage. “If the public can report who is hoarding rice or where, we can investigate and confiscate such stocks. By hiding rice stocks, traders, middlemen, and some businesses profit unreasonably, as the public is forced to buy what is available at whatever price the seller decides,” Niriella explained. When asked why the CAA had decided to ban the use of imported rice to produce animal feed, Niriella said that animal feed manufacturers were trying to use a loophole in the regulations, which until last week only banned the use of locally-produced rice from being used in the making of animal feed. According to the CAA, the renewed ban on the use of any rice, be it locally grown or imported, in the manufacture of animal feed will remain in place until the risk of a food shortage declines. All-Island Poultry Association Chairman Ajith Gunawardena told The Sunday Morning that the Government should provide alternative ingredients needed to make animal feed if the current ban on rice and the restrictions on the import of corn continue.  He pointed out that the lack of animal feed was pushing up prices of poultry products, which in turn denied the public access to a key source of protein.   According to Gunawardena, Sri Lanka only produces approximately 50% of the corn used in animal feed, with the rest needing to be imported. Imports of such ingredients were challenging due to the forex crisis, he added.


More News..