{"id":108085,"date":"2020-10-26T17:23:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T00:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108085"},"modified":"2020-10-26T17:23:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T00:23:42","slug":"the-mcc-compact-method-of-creating-more-poverty-the-usa-can-definitely-do-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/26\/the-mcc-compact-method-of-creating-more-poverty-the-usa-can-definitely-do-better\/","title":{"rendered":"The MCC Compact Method of Creating more Poverty: The USA can definitely do better."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin\u00a0 Karunaratne, PhD. Michigan State University\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The Millennium Challenge \nCorporation\nCompact has come up with an easy, novel method of poverty alleviation. It\nrequires the identification and separation of a mass of  land, the  creation of a cadastral\nmap of land parcels and a complete inventory of State land…improve the\nvaluation of State and private land parcels by improving data\ncollection\u2026improving deeds registry\u2026 and research in support of measures to\nimprove land administration policies”(The Island:15\/7\/2019)  The aim is also\u201d increase tenure security and tradability of land\nfor small holders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The method  involves a “transportation project for which\nMCC provides $ 480 million to promote economic growth.  This comprises a transport project of  $ 350 million .and a land project of $ 67 million <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the Batalagoda  \nRice\nResearch Institute that found the miracle seeds in the early Fifties, a half\ndecade before the International Rice Research Institute was established by the\nUSA in the Philippines. I was in the fray introducing new varieties to\ncultivators in 1955, later as Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services in\nAnuradhapura  I spearheaded the Green\nRevolution through elected cultivation committees- 300 hundred of them. The\ncombined effort of the Department of Agrarian Services and the Department of\nAgriculture did a yeoman task later spearheaded by no less a person than Mr\nDudley Senanayake, the Prime Minister of the country. I served as the\nAdditional Government Agent at Kegalla in 1967 and 1968  and we spared no pains to bring about development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

`The work involved a range of Departments- the Department of\nIrrigation to provide irrigation, The Department of Land Development to handle\nthe development of peasant cultivation in colonies, the Department of\nAgriculture with its Rice Research Institutes, the Department of Agrarian\nServices, the Government Agents in charge \nof land\nhandled by District Land Officers, the Department of Small Industries, the\nDepartment for Development of Agricultural Marketing- the department that\nprovided the development infrastructure for marketing vegetables. In these I\nhave worked as the Assistant Commissioner of Marketing Development, Assistant\nCommissioner of Agrarian Services, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian\nServices, the Deputy Director for Small Industries and the Additionl Government\nAgent at Kegalla and the GA at Matara for eighteen long years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MCC Compact thinks of transportation necessities. Sri Lanka\nhad a marvelous  transport system in the\nFifties and Sixties. Red Onions were produced in Jaffna and our stores were\nstock full during the season. During the season around twenty wagon loads of\nred onions were despatched  to the rest of the island\ndaily. In my days in the Southern Province three wagon loads of red onions  came daily to Galle and was sold to dealers and consumers by the\nMarketing Department. During the paddy harvest season daily twenty wagon loads\nof paddy came to Galle and Matara for distribution to millers to be milled for\ndistribution to people. At Tripoli Market the headquarters of the Vegetable\nMarketing Scheme there were at least ten wagon loads  and twenty lorries of vegetables dispatched the earlier day from\nall corners of the island.  Our transport network was\nextremely efficient. Highways built in recent times by our Prime Minister\nMahinda Rajapaksa in his service as a Minister and Prime Minister has seen to\nit that transport is very efficient. Now the Railways have gone downhill, but\nroad transport has been developed;there are better motorways and what is\nrequired for any programme of poverty alleviation is not transport facilities.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Land was ably handled by\nthe Government Agents who had District Land |Officers fully equipped with\nvehicles and surveyors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all the Departments of the Government working pell mell, by\n1970, the Green Revolution was a grand success and the country was self\nsufficient in paddy the staple crop even while issuing a rice ration to the\npeople. The peasants settled in the colonization schemes got massive  harvests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get down to what has been achieved by the Unites States of\nAmerica in Third World Countries, the only success one can speak of in poverty\nalleviation is the Comilla Programme of Rural Development, in Bangladesh,\nwith expertise provided by Michigan State University.  Half a dozen professors resided in the serpent infested Kotwali\nThana and with the Director Akhter Hameed Khan  developed a model of poverty alleviation by providing irrigation\nwater, mainly through deep tube wells, introducing new high yielding varieties\nof paddy, worked with peasants organizing them in cooperatives, brought about\nadministrative changes, cooperatives attending to marketing.  This Programme  had grand success in that\nit doubled the yields of paddy the staple crop and also brought about a\nsituation of full employment. Truly even today the Kotwali Thana where the\nProgramme was implemented is an oasis within a poverty stricken Bangladesh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all the above programmes that have been successful transport\nand land registration was an insignificant part. It was the opening of land,\nthe provision of irrigation water, organizing peasants into cooperatives and\nother people\u2019s organizations, providing marketing facilities, an efficient\nagricultural extension service that enabled poverty alleviation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus I wonder how a petty land project and a transport project is\ngoing to bring about poverty alleviation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the MCC  Project had been drafted by\nany one with a knowledge of agricultural economics there would be funds for\nagricultural and rural development extension services, the build up of\nmarketing channels, initiating small industry to enable people to get involved\nin manufacturing their production. That was what  the Comilla Programme of Rural Development  proved beyond doubt.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone thinking of agricultural development has to think of\nbuilding up the agricultural extension service , which does not exist today at\nthe village level because during the days of President Premadasa,  2400 overseers who worked at the village level were promoted as\nGrama Niladharis. Uptodate no trained officer has been appointed and the\nGovermants have been  appointing untrained  workers. Thus any poverty alleviation through agriculturae has to\nlook into this aspect.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me get down to specifics., It will interest the MCC\norganizaers to know that till 1977 SriLanka had a highly developed cereal,\nvegetable and fruit marketing scheme \nwhich was\ntotally abolished at the advice of the International Monetary Fund. The\nDepartment for Development of Agricultural Marketing implemented a cereal\npurchasing scheme whereby paddy and other cereals in short supply. Paddy was\ntill 1977 purchased at a premium price from genuine cultivators. This price\nincrease reached the genuine cultivators. After 1977, the method of purchasing\nfrom genuine cultivators was abandoned and instead paddy was purchased from\nanyone. Generally it was traders that sold to the Government  and the premium price went to the traders and not to the genuine\ncultivators.  In case the MCC wants to\nattend to any poverty alleviation in any country agriculture has to be looked\ninto. Transport and land are very miniscule aspects and attending to only these\ntwo aspects cannot bring about poverty alleviation.  the development infrastructure that the country had has to be\nbrought back.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marketing Department had a vegetable purchasing scheme which\npurchased vegetables from producers at prices higher than what was offered by\ntraders at the producer fairs. The vegetables were transported overnight to\nTripoli Market, the headquarters in Colombo when all vegetables over ten rail\nwagon loads and about twenty lorryloads are received every morning and the\nvegetables are distributed to Fair Price Shops in the City. This controlled\ninflation. The IMF advise that the Marketing Department should be privatized\nand abolished was done in 1978 and the \nproducers\nare at the mercy of the trader mafia that purchase at the lowest possible\nprice.  In case the MCC wants to\nprovide marketing facilities to enable producers to sell their produce at\nreasonable rates, it should advise that the Marketing Department should be re\nestablished.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marketing Department had a Cannery which purchased fruit from\nproducers. The total produce of pineapples, red pumpkin and ash pumpkin  was  purchased at a premium\nprice and this was turned into Juice and Jam. This was a boon to the producers.\nThe country became self sufficient in Jam and Juice. With the abolition of the\nMD the producers have no market for their produce. This alleviated poverty\namong the vegetable and fruit producers and this may be an idea for the MCC to\ntake action in case they are interested in poverty alleviation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To enable cultivators to have high yielding varieties of paddy for\nthe areas we had Rice Research Institutes. Half of these have been privatized.\nAnd currently there is no definite programme to have high yielding varieties\nplanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the necessity to bring in a US Company for any surveying\nin Sri Lanka. The Survey Department in Sri Lanka is a well equipped and a very\nefficient department. . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the urgency to do a survey of 2.5 million plots of land in\nthe  country. \nPrivate\n;lands are surveyed and all LDO allotments have also been surveyed in the last\nfew decades before they were alienated to settlers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would interest the\nMillennium Challenge Corporation officials to come to know how the development\nin Sri Lanka and other Third World countries was sabotaged. That is the story\nof my book: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle\/\nGodages: 2017) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me close with a quote from luminary professor Jeffery Sachs: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Western  Governments\nenforced  draconian budget policies in\nAfrica in the 1980s and 1990s., The IMF and the World Bank virtually ran the\neconomic policies of the debt ridden continent recommending regimes  of budgetary belt tightening jnown technically\nas the Structural Adjustment Programme. These programmes had little scientific\nmerit and produced even fewer cresults. By the start of the twentyfirst century\nAfrica was poorer than in the late 1960s when the IMF and the World Bank  had first arrived on the scene, with disease,\npopulation growth and environmental degradation spiralling out of control. IMF\nled austerity has frequently led to riots, coups and the collapse of public\nservices>\u201d( From The End of Poverty) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka has too played poodle to the IMF since 1977, carrying\nout all its instructions. Sri Lanka had to abolish its development\ninfrastructure that had  actually brought\nabout poverty alleviation, self sufficiency in agriculture and success in many areas\nof industry. All this was sacrificed following the IMF prescriptions, which we\nyet follow. It would be apt to state that our current international\ndebt of $ 56 billion was created by adhering to the instructions of the IMF. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time the IMF and its ruling Countries of the West- the\nUSA  opened their eyes and direct a new paradigm for development. and its\nimplementation would bring great credit to the United States of America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University\u00a0
Author of \u00a0How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Altternative \u00a0Programmes of Success, Goidages, 2006\u00a0
How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development,(Kindle\/Godages 2017)\u00a0
\u00a0Colombo 27\/10\/2020\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin\u00a0 Karunaratne, PhD. Michigan State University\u00a0 The Millennium Challenge  Corporation Compact has come up with an easy, novel method of poverty alleviation. It requires the identification and separation of a mass of  land, the  creation of a cadastral map of land parcels and a complete inventory of State land…improve the valuation of State and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}