Floods and food

THE La Nina development has certainly given Sri Lanka a rude wakeup call in the New Year. Climatic change-driven heavy showers and resultant floods have displaced 300,000 people and affected just over one million. The latter figure is higher than the people who were displaced during the successful ‘Operation Liberation’ conducted in May 2009 to eradicate terrorism from the country.

Life and livelihoods have been severely disrupted in the Eastern, North Central and Central Provinces because of the incessant, heavy downpour. Additional Secretary of the Disaster Management Ministry Gamini Rajakaruna was quoted in the Daily FT yesterday as saying that according to the preliminary assessment, the floods have caused socioeconomic damage amounting to Rs. 50 billion. The death toll is estimated to be over 20, with a few people missing as well.

Life for thousands of people in the affected areas is surely miserable right now, to say the least, and the delay in getting across urgent relief is likely to make things worse for them. Nations are helpless over natural calamities, but the overall unpreparedness to mitigate the fallout and inaccessibility to affected areas or lack of sophisticated means and resources to get across shows the level of underdevelopment or incompetency the nation suffers from.

Considering the displacement and chaos caused, the degree of initial relief support and its speed has been disappointing. However, with the deployment of service personnel, the situation is being brought under control. It would have been better had civil society and corporates in unaffected areas acted quicker. Given the nature of the calamity, a swifter and more combined effort would have helped ease the hardship.

With floods come the next crisis – spread of disease – whilst the food supply of the country is likely to face fresh problems since the affected areas are predominantly agrarian. It was in this context and against the backdrop of severe undercurrents in the global markets that President Mahinda Rajapaksa this week stressed on the need for Sri Lanka to prepare for what could be a bigger crisis.

Booming China and India have made staple food stocks run short. They are also major exporters to the globe of some of the produce and supply-demand challenges such as unfavourable weather have forced temporary suspension. The world, surprisingly, is running out of food.

A direct result of mismatch in supply and demand, record high food prices are moving to the top of the agenda for many Asian policymakers. Analysts have warned that the prospect of higher inflation in 2011 poses a major threat to the region’s strong revival from the global financial crisis.

Prior to the Presidential warning this week, some policymakers in Sri Lanka have been downplaying the problem. We have seen severe upward pressure on inflation in recent months. This has threatened the continuity of the so-called yet commendable “mid-single digit” inflation. Whilst the common man is likely to laugh at inflation statistics as price levels in the market remain high, inside the Government there is admission that food inflation will increase considerably. This is both due to domestic and global factors.

The twin challenge of floods and food inflation reinforces the need for Sri Lanka to get its act together in terms of right policies, adequate investments and the best and most sustainable practices and implementation. What the country saw in terms of floods causing havoc in four provinces is likely to be forgotten in a few months time and also in view of local government elections in March. If we were to draw a parallel, the best case in point is when Colombo gets flooded. Soon after there is a hive of activity of damage control or piecemeal remedial measures, only to be dropped halfway through until the next round of floods rain on politicians’ and policymakers’ memory and conscience.

Agriculture and food production needs a more holistic effort. The country has seen enough of good policies, but lack of implementation or haphazard changes have made good intentions fall by the wayside. With Sri Lanka blessed by end-war phenomena, the country has a golden opportunity to do the right things. Further delay or failure will only see a flooded and starving ‘Wonder of Asia.’