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From farm to doorstep - Feeding the rich and poor alike

12 Apr 2020

  • Feeding the rich and poor alike
By Sarah Hannan While most of the production and supply lines have come to a halt during this quarantine curfew which is in place to stop the spread of Covid-19, the farmers of Sri Lanka are working the fields so that the food supply for the consumers are not cut short. With travel limitations being implemented between districts, farmers who were dependent on transportation facilities through third parties suffered the worst. However, on a small scale, one company has already established a method where, even during a crisis, farmers are able to sell their produce through their already-established distribution network. Functioning for just over a year, Lanka Agri Produce Management Corporation (LAPMC) has been able to maintain a continuous supply chain from the farm to the doorstep of the consumer. The Sunday Morning spoke to LAPMC Managing Director Kavinda Dissanayake on how their company has been able to supply fresh fruits and vegetables to consumers since its inception. Prior to joining LAPMC, Dissanayake worked as the Chairman for the National Institute of Post Harvest Management (NIPHM). During his stint at the institute, his team had got together to understand why agricultural practices in Sri Lanka always get hampered and create many issues due to the inability to streamline the supply chain. The research was conducted for about two years, and the team had come up with a programme on adapting methods suitable to Sri Lanka, with the contribution of the existing farmers, transporters, and retailers. “We wanted to create a single platform which will link all these suppliers that make up the supply chain. Unfortunately, the plan was not recognised by the then authorities, as they thought it was a very ambitious plan and the Government was not ready to execute it. The director of the institute, one of the researchers, and I decided that we should implement this plan in our personal capacity outside the national institute (NIPHM), and Lanka Agri Produce Management Corporation was founded in 2018,” noted Dissanayake. Dissanayake also said that the programme was launched in February 2019 and Dr. Gerry Jayawardena, who is a senior agriculturist, was appointed as the Chairman of LAPMC, and one of the senior postharvest scientists in the country, Dr. Shanthini Wilson Wijeratnam, was appointed as the Deputy Chairman of the corporation. With the launch of the programme, LAPMC had created a complete trading platform which could be used by the farmer, transporter, retailer, and administrators. Meanwhile, LAPMC also received the opportunity to bid for a tender that was published by Lanka Sathosa to supply vegetables and fruits. LAPMC won the tender and is now signed up as the exclusive partner for Lanka Sathosa for fruits and vegetables. With the country placed under curfew, LAPMC stepped in to fulfil the vegetable and fruit requirements of the country. “Given the current situation as a company that takes social responsibility to heart, we had to innovate methods of supplying fresh vegetables and fruits directly to the consumer. We curated vegetable, fruit, and food supplementary packs to match consumer requirements at an affordable price, ranging from Rs. 650 to Rs. 1,300, so that consumers could choose the pack best suited for them.” LAPMC, with the assistance of the respective district secretariats and the Police, is currently conducting the full-fledged distribution of fruits and vegetables in and around Colombo. In addition to that, LAPMC has also partnered with online trading platforms such as Uber, Takas.lk, OrelBuy, and ESOFT to sell the produce to a wider population. These platforms procure the supplies from LAPMC and deliver it to the consumers’ doorsteps. The LAPMC has also written to the Presidential Task Force appointed to ensure the distribution of food and other essentials among the public during the curfew period, offering its assistance and mechanism to reach to the poorer segments of society. Postharvest management We inquired from Dissanayake as to what methods LAPMC is using to store the fruits and vegetables that they purchase from the farmers until the produce is delivered to the consumer. Responding to this, Dissanayake said: “Sri Lanka is situated in the tropical belt which allows us to store certain commodities for a longer period of time, whereas certain commodities cannot be stored for too long. These commodities that have a shorter shelf life will need to go through a value-addition process, where the said fruit or vegetable will have to be dehydrated, pulped, or pureed so it can be stored for a longer period of time.” With Sri Lanka having favourable weather all year round in different parts of the country, farmers can easily cultivate produce throughout the year if there is sufficient water. If Sri Lanka has a distribution network in place, food security will not become a problem. But this can only be achieved if all parties are geared to do so, Dissanayake reiterated. “Sri Lanka spends between Rs. 70-100 billion per year on agriculture, and between the two main institutions – the Department of Agriculture and Department of Agrarian Services – there are about 28,000 people. Each divisional secretariat has its very own agriculture officer, agriculture inspectors, and district officers. Sri Lanka has a network of administrative people to handle these tasks which is actually underutilised. “I think we have been given a very good opportunity to utilise the available workforce within our government institutions, as they could make a positive impact at a time like this by co-ordinating the food distribution network across the country. Farmers are always ready to cultivate; their only issues are how their livelihoods are going to be secured,” Dissanayake stressed. Due to the gaps in the transportation and distribution networks, farmers at the moment are facing a lot of issues in selling their crops. We asked Dissanayake whether Sri Lanka from time to time experiences bumper harvests, to which he provided a surprising answer, stating that Sri Lanka never faces an excess in food production and that the only issue that Sri Lanka has is a transport and distribution issue. “The best example is that when big onions are harvested in Dambulla, the farmers cannot sell their harvest. Sri Lanka’s average big onion requirement is 240,000 metric tonnes per year, and Sri Lanka produces about 80,000-100,000 metric tonnes and we import the balance. Since Sri Lanka is not handling its national bulk management and national distribution is not centralised, the farmers in Sri Lanka have to suffer in such instances,” Dissanayake noted, pointing out that the daily requirement of big onions in Sri Lanka is about 600 metric tonnes and the country manages to produce big onions that are consumed for a period of approximately three to four months. He also stated that when the pumpkin harvest is high in a certain area, other areas of the country might have a shortage in pumpkin supply, while the farmer has to sell their crops at a lower rate, but the consumer will have to purchase it at a higher rate as the harvested crops are not being distributed properly. A food balance sheet Sri Lanka currently does not have an updated food balance sheet and the importance of having such a mechanism in place is becoming more vital at a time of crisis. With imports being halted, the Government will have to look at ways to systematically distribute the local produce to all areas across the island. According to Dissanayake, this is something he wanted to implement when he was at the NIPHM, so the statistics could be updated constantly and would be visible to all who have access to the platform. “LAPMC currently has such a platform in place and the inventories of the amount of produce that is available with the farmers can be easily accessed. Retailers too are able to see how much of stock is available for them to move. In return, the farmers can see how fast their produce is moving on the platform as well,” Dissanayake explained. While LAPMC does not have their own farms, they have established production units and each unit has about 50 farmers supplying fruits and vegetables. These units are then assigned to the village-level collection centres. From the collection centres, the produce is then brought to the area distribution centre/district distribution centre. It is from these distribution centres that the fruits and vegetables are released to the retailers, exporters, and food processors, who finally take the product to the consumer. Maintaining the price Farmers always struggle with fetching a fair price for their produce, and consumers get overly concerned when the price mark is a little more than the market price. We asked Dissanayake how LAPMC manages to offer a fair price to the farmer for their produce and then ensures that the consumers too do not have to pay exuberant prices when they have to purchase curated fruit or vegetable packs. “We have a price policy and do not go by the market trend, because we believe that the farmer’s livelihood needs to be uplifted. If people compare our prices with the market price, they will definitely see a difference. We purchase produce from the farmer at a higher price. For instance, the market price for a kilo of watermelon at present is about Rs. 8-10 but we purchase a kilo of watermelon at Rs. 35,” he noted. Dissanayake further explained that they arrive at the buying price considering the cost of production plus a profit margin that would be paid to the farmer and that LAPMC will not go below that buying price. He stated that this measure is in place to ensure that the farmers feel a sense of security and will know that they are paid a fair price for their produce and that they have a stable cash flow, thus motivating them to continue their field work. LAPMC is at present sourcing their vegetables and fruits from the Anuradhapura, Hambantota, Monaragala, Badulla, and Nuwara Eliya Districts. While the company has 13,000 registered farmers in these districts for the current operation, they are only working with about 1,200 farmers. This is done to maintain the profitability and ensure that the produce that is collected from all these farmers is sold in the market. Dissanayake informed that once the sales increase further, farmers will be requested to supply to LAPMC. Apart from the farmers, LAPMC also employs agro-engineers, postharvest specialists, and economists in their top management. Even the field officers are qualified in the agriculture sector. At the moment, about 150 support staff members are working at LAPMC to ensure that the farmers’ produce gets safely delivered to the consumers’ doorsteps.

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