{"id":118350,"date":"2021-09-20T16:11:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118350"},"modified":"2021-09-20T16:15:03","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:15:03","slug":"the-food-emergency-in-sri-lanka-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/20\/the-food-emergency-in-sri-lanka-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018food emergency&#8217; in Sri Lanka explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><a class=\"auth-nm lnk\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/profile\/author\/The-Hindu-Net-Desk-248\/\">The Hindu Net Desk<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A video explainer on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka leading to speculations of a food shortage in the country.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/food-emergency-in-sri-lanka-explained\/article36562488.ece\">https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/food-emergency-in-sri-lanka-explained\/article36562488.ece<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s government declared an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/sri-lanka-declares-economic-emergency-to-contain-food-prices-as-forex-crisis-worsens\/article36226141.ece\">economic emergency&nbsp;<\/a>on August 30, 2021 amid rising food prices, a depreciating currency, and rapidly depleting forex reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed Major General N.D.S.P. Niwunhella as the Commissioner General of Essential Services to coordinate and ensure that people have access to essential supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why is Sri Lanka\u2019s economy in trouble?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A number of factors have led to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/explained-what-caused-the-sri-lankan-economic-crisis\/article36314148.ece\">current economic crisis&nbsp;<\/a>in Sri Lanka, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>the tourism industry being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic<\/li><li>the forex reserves dropping from over $7.5 billion in 2019 to around $2.8 billion in July this year<\/li><li>the supply of foreign exchange drying up<\/li><li>and the value of the Sri Lankan rupee depreciating by around 8% so far this year<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The amount of money that Sri Lankans have to shell out to purchase the foreign exchange necessary to import goods has risen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country depends heavily on imports to meet even its basic food supplies. So the price of food items has risen in tandem with the depreciating rupee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What does a food emergency mean?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Emergency regulations allow the government to provide food items and other essentials at fixed prices by buying up stock from traders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The capping of food prices can lead to severe shortages as demand exceeds supply at the price fixed by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When supplies are seized from traders, there is lesser incentive for them to bring in fresh supplies to the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This can lead to a further drop in supplies and even higher prices for essential goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further, the decision of the Sri Lankan central bank to ban forward contracts and the spot trading of rupees at above 200 rupees to an American dollar may affect essential supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is there a food shortage?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While the Sri Lankan government has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/what-is-the-food-emergency-in-sri-lanka\/article36327786.ece\">denied reports of a food shortage<\/a>, there is fear of one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have already had to queue up to buy essential goods<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fear of a possible food shortage also stems from the Rajapaksa administration\u2019s decision in April to ban import of chemical fertilizers and adopting an organic only\u201d approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Farmers who resisted the move have warned that the dramatic, overnight shift to organic fertilizers could impact production severely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Producers of tea have warned of a 50% drop in production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, many, especially daily-wage earners, and low-income families, are complaining about being unable to afford, and in many cases access, essentials such as milk, sugar, and rice during the current lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prices of essential commodities \u2014 including rice, dhal, bread, sugar, vegetables, fish \u2014 have risen several times during the pandemic, and more rapidly in recent weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hindu Net Desk A video explainer on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka leading to speculations of a food shortage in the country. https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/food-emergency-in-sri-lanka-explained\/article36562488.ece Sri Lanka\u2019s government declared an&nbsp;economic emergency&nbsp;on August 30, 2021 amid rising food prices, a depreciating currency, and rapidly depleting forex reserves. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed Major General N.D.S.P. Niwunhella [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,176,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-chemical-fertilizer-ban","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118350","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=118350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}