No international market for SL rice

Rice export was not possible as there was no international demand for Sri Lankan ordinary rice varieties, Agriculture Ministry Secretary Wijerathne Sakalasooriya told The Island yesterday (02).

He noted that the quality of milled rice produced in Sri Lanka was lower than that of average quality rice traded as mass exports.

"Other competing countries offer better quality rice of preferred varieties at the same price," he said.

"Sri Lanka is a high cost rice producer. We don’t earn even one dollar per one kg of rice in the international market. Cost of production of paddy is more expensive and we need two kilos of paddy to produce one kilo of rice that conform to international standards," he added.

"But there is a high demand for the Sri Lankan traditional ‘health rice such as Alhal, Suwedal, Rathhal’ in the world market specially in USA, UK and Europe," Sakalsooriya said.

Currently, Sri Lanka was engaged in exporting to small niche markets and there was a limited demand for ‘Samba’ and ‘red rice’ and another limited market for special varieties such as red pericarp long grain rice, he added. "We have begun some awareness and marketing campaigns in foreign countries to convince the international rice buyers of the value of our rice. We are encouraging our local farmers to cultivate rice varieties with medicinal value."

Meanwhile, the government has suspended export of rice to other countries until the next Maha Season harvest, due to the inclement weather which destroyed thousands of acres of cultivated paddy lands in the North-Western, North-Central Province and some areas in the Southern province.

More than 50,000 acres of rice cultivation were affected by floods in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Puttalam, Ampara and Trincomalee districts and around 100,000 acres of paddy land in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kurunegala Puttalam, and Trincomalee Districts were destroyed by the drought earlier. The loss of paddy harvest amounted to 400,000 MT of paddy from the drought