The worst drought in 40 years has forced thousands in Sri Lanka to abandon their livelihoods and seek work in cities. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
PERIYAKULAM/ADIGAMA, Jan 5 2018 (IPS)

Last year was an annus horribilis for 52-year-old Newton Gunathileka. A paddy smallholder from Sri Lanka’s northwestern Puttalam District, 2017 saw Gunathileka abandon his two acres of paddy for the first time in over three and half decades, leaving his family almost destitute.

The father of two had suffered two straight harvest losses and was over 1,300 dollars in the red when he decided to move out of his village and look for work in nearby towns.

“What am I to do? There is no work in our village, all the fields have dried up, everyone is moving out looking for work,” Gunathileka told IPS.

He was left to work in construction sites and tobacco fields for a daily wage of about five dollars. When jobs became scarcer, his wife joined the search for casual work. The couple, who have been supporting their family off casual work for the last four months, is unsure whether they will ever return to farming despite the drought easing.

Gunathileka is not alone. Disasters, manmade and natural, are increasingly forcing agriculture-based income earners, especially small farmers, out of their villages and into cities looking for work.

In the village of Adigama, in the same district, government officials suspect that between 150 and 200 villagers, mainly youth, have left looking for work in the last two years. Sisira Kumara, the main government administrative officer in the village, said that the migration has been prompted by harvest losses.

“There was no substantial rain between October of 2016 and November 2017. Three harvests have been lost. Unlike in the past, now you cannot rely on rain patterns which in turn makes agriculture a very risky affair,” he said.

“In Sri Lanka, poverty, unemployment, lack of livelihood options and recurring climate shocks impact the food security of many families, resulting in migration to find secure livelihoods,” the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said last year in a joint communiqué with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to commemorate World Food Day.

Women, particularly single breadwinners, have been left vulnerable in Sri Lanka’s poverty-stricken former northern war zone. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Climate shocks have been severe in Sri Lanka in the past few years. In 2017, a drought affected over two million people and floods impacted an additional 500,000. The vital paddy harvest was the lowest in over a decade, falling 40 percent compared to the year before. The UN has termed the 2017 drought as the worst in 40 years..

According to M.W, Weerakoon, additional secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, paddy farmers have to work throughout the year just to stay above the poverty line. He estimates that a paddy farmer needs to cultivate 2.6 acres without a break just to make the 116 dollars (Rs 17,760) needed monthly for a family of four to remain above the poverty line.

“That is not possible with the unpredictable rains, so farmers are moving out,” he said. Around 20 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 21million are internal migrants, according to government statistics, and experts like Weerakoon say that this movement is heightened by climate shocks.

Staying in their native villages and continuing to farm pushes victims further into a debt trap. Last August, when the drought was at its peak, a WFP survey found that the family debt of those surveyed had risen by 50 percent compared to a year back. And as formal lenders like banks shy away from lending to them, these farmers tend to seek the help of informal lenders.

Human-made disasters are also pushing the poor out of their homes to seek jobs elsewhere. In Sri Lanka’s North and East, ravaged by a deadly civil war till 2009, high poverty rates are forcing vulnerable segments of society like war widows to seek work elsewhere.

In the Northern Province where the war was at its worst, female unemployment rates are almost twice the national rate of 7 percent, at 13.8 percent. There is no data available for single female-headed households of which there are at least 58,000 out of the provincial total of 250,000.

Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar, a 52-year-old war widow from the North, spent three harrowing months in Oman after being duped by job agents. Credit: Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar family

Last year, the Association for Friendship and Love (AFRIEL), a civic group based in the province, located 15 women stuck in Muscat, Oman, after being sent there by job agents. At least four were from the war zone and none had been paid for months and were being moved around the Omani capital daily working in odd jobs.

Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar a 54-year-old war widow who was part of the group, said that they were being sent for casual work by the job agents to recoup costs. “All of us could not work in the households due to various issues, so for three months we kept doing odd jobs, so that the agents made their money,” she said. The group was finally brought back to Sri Lanka after the government intervened.

AFRIEL head Ravidra de Silva told IPS that women like Nesemalhar were among the most vulnerable due to almost zero chances of jobs in their villages. “So they will take any chance that is offered to them. What we need are long-haul policies that target vulnerable communities.”

Unfortunately, there have been few such interventions since the war’s conclusion.

The IOM office in Colombo said that climate-driven migration was fueled by complex and diverse set of drivers and required multi-dimensional risk assessments and interventions.

Government official Weerakoon said that one of the main ambitions of the government in 2018 was to increase the planted extent of paddy and other crops. The government also plans to introduce measures to increase value addition among farmers who remain by and large bulk suppliers of raw produce.

Chief Maki Massing stands outside his modest dwelling built of cement and corrugated iron in an informal housing settlement in Freswota, outside of Port Villa. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT VILA, Jun 10 2014 (IPS)

Rapid migration to cities and towns, driven by scarce public services and jobs in rural areas, is producing a profound social shift in Pacific Island countries, where agrarian life has dominated for generations. But the urban dream remains elusive as a severe lack of housing forces many into sprawling, poorly-serviced informal settlements.

In the southwest Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, which has a population of 247,262, the urban growth rate is four percent, the second highest in the region after the Solomon Islands.

On the outskirts of the capital, Port Vila, with a population of 44,000, is Freswota, comprising six areas known as Freswota 1-6, which are home to an estimated 8,000 people.

Chief Maki Massing, originally from west Ambrym Island in the nation’s northern provinces, is a widower with six children who has lived in Freswota 4 for 30 years.

"If you don’t find work, you must go back to your island, because Port Vila is a very expensive town." -- Chief Maki Massing, community leader in Freswota
As the late afternoon sun fades, light bulbs strung across the front yard of his compound illuminate the house Massing built of cement and corrugated iron. Colourful lengths of fabric curtain the doorways. Early evening bustle fills the nearby street as he tells me why he left his rural village of Lalinda.

“My children came to Port Vila for school,” he explained. “As my income in the village from growing copra was not very good, I came here to find work so I can pay the school fees.”

Massing is fortunate to have landed a job in the formal sector. After working in a bank for 15 years, he joined the state ministry of health, where he has been employed since 1992.

The circumstances of most people in Freswota vary from permanent employment to informal labour (with people taking jobs as market vendors selling fresh produce) to unemployment, but they share one commonality: low incomes and poor living conditions.

Frank William at the Port Vila Municipality Council told IPS that land in the capital has not yet been zoned for specific development uses, such as residential or commercial, which has hindered urban planning progress. “Some public housing is available for people who come to Port Vila to work,” he said, “but people on low incomes are still unable to afford them.”

The average cost of a basic decent house lies somewhere in the range of 31,600-52,700 dollars, which is out of reach for many local residents living on the minimum monthly wage of roughly 316 dollars. The National Housing Corporation, which is under-resourced, sells land without housing development to residents in Freswota 3-6.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reports that 16.8 percent of government workers and 17.1 percent of private sector employees in Port Vila live below the poverty line.

“For me, it’s too expensive because I must also pay for water, electricity, transport and school fees,” Massing said. Even with a government job, he has to earn extra money by renting out two small rooms in his house.

Throughout the Pacific Islands the scale of rural to urban migration dramatically outpaces job growth, availability of land and state capacity to expand housing and public services.

Thirty-five percent of all Pacific Islanders, in a region with a population of 10 million, now live in towns and cities. In Vanuatu, 25 percent of the national population are urban residents and this is predicted to rise to 38 percent by 2030.

Lack of decent housing is worsening urban poverty, with 24 percent of all metropolitan residents in the Pacific Islands inhabiting slums. In Port Vila, one-third of children are impacted by poverty, which is 20 percent higher than the national average, reports the Pacific Islands Forum.

Leias Cullwick, executive director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, claims that a low minimum wage and high cost of living in Port Vila are tipping families into severe hardship.

“Eighty percent of people in urban areas cannot even afford one decent meal per day. In the hospitals, 70 percent of the women giving birth cannot afford enough healthy food, so [their] babies are going to be malnourished,” she said.

People’s lives are also affected by lack of basic services. Massing claims that water, electricity and roads are urgently needed in Freswota 4.

“For the first five years here, I had to go down to the river every afternoon to wash and collect water to bring back to the house,” he said.

Traditional community leaders, such as Massing, are taking initiatives to address social and development issues in urban settlements.

“I talked to the government on behalf of my people and they then provided some water and electricity in this area,” he continued.

And while he understands the desires that drive people to Port Vila from rural areas, Massing believes that the city is not the best option for everyone.

“I bring everybody together here and talk to them and say you must work to stay here. If you don’t find work, you must go back to your island, because Port Vila is a very expensive town,” he said, emphasising the need to prevent destitution and crime.

According to the Pacific Islands Forum, state institutions need to take measures to improve urban planning and reform the housing market in the interests of those in most need.

Many Port Vila residents, including Massing and Cullwick, are also concerned about the misuse of public funds allocated to improving infrastructure and services. The Vanuatu Corruption Commission, established last year, has a mandate to address political and administrative mismanagement.

Proposing a bottom-up approach, Cullwick said traditional housing in villages could be better utilised for those marginalised in towns. She believes adapting traditional dwelling designs and using readily available natural building materials, such as thatch and bamboo, could reduce the cost of constructing a safe and healthy house.

In the meantime, Vanuatu has joined the UN-Habitat’s Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP), which aims to improve urban living conditions and progress toward Millennium Development Goal 7 – bettering the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020. Urban profiles, part of Phase 1, are currently being drafted ahead of the next phases of planning and implementation.

(END)

A tribal widow in India bends over a wood fire making puffed rice. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Walter García and Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jun 24 2013 (IPS)

As managing director of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED), India’s apex agriculture marketing organisation, Sanjeev Chopra is in the thick of planned legislation to cover 800 million Indians under the world’s biggest food subsidy programme.

The new bill, whose implementation will cost 23 billion dollars annually, has been criticised as a ploy by the ruling Congress party to win votes in an election year.

Chopra, a top official in the ministry of agriculture, spoke with IPS correspondent Ranjit Devraj on the advantages and pitfalls of the Food Security Bill that, when passed in July, will make access to food a fundamental right in this country of 1.2 billion people.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: There are fears that the proposed Food Security Bill will undermine the existing public distribution system (PDS). Do you agree?

A: The Bill will not undermine the PDS. The basic change is that what has so far been a responsibility of the state governments will become that of the Central government. Further, provision of food will become a fundamental and enforceable right. This will, no doubt, increase the demands on the PDS system, and India will now have to invest far more in logistics, and infrastructure.

Q:  Almost daily we are inundated with images in the media of grain rotting in the open, exposed to the elements. What is your opinion on this, given widespread malnutrition and hunger in India, and the fact that the Supreme Court recently stepped in to order the distribution of free grain to starving people?

2. There can be no two views about the fact that rotting grain reflects poorly on India’s procurement and distribution system, as well as our inability to attract investments in this sector. The Planning Commission has attached high priority to creating warehousing infrastructure. The solution is not free distribution because this distorts the market, and makes farming for the marginal and small farmers less remunerative. A better response would be exports, or food assistance to countries where crops have failed on account of drought or excessive rainfall.

Q: Are there remedies to this glaring shortfall in governance?

A: Procurement systems require massive investments in infrastructure. We need  grading machines at principal market yards which can clearly give information about moisture, admixtures, average grain size, colour etc. These may come up in the private sector – which will ensure that manpower and maintenance issues will not be a hassle for the government. NAFED encourages its member organisations to get the grain graded in these machines, which will usher in transparency in procurement.

As for distribution we need to leverage technology. This ranges from ensuring weekly delivery schedules to informing all stakeholders over mobile phones about stock availability. While governments have to address the supply side, civil society, media and panchayats (village councils) have to ensure ‘effective demand’.

There are also structural issues like provision of liberal credit to the PDS dealer, improving his profit margins, and giving him an incentive to report off-take. The PDS dealer has to be treated as an integral part of the PDS system, not as an adversary.

Q: How do you propose to balance the interests of traders, including exporters, and small and marginalised farmers who seem to be at the short end of the stick (as witnessed in the exodus from rural areas to the cities)?

A: Intermediaries exist at all levels because they add ‘value’ – it may be argued that it is not value for money. Information technology can reduce the cost of information and intermediation. In states like Punjab and Haryana, which lead agricultural production, the influence of the intermediaries on the political economy of grain procurement is very strong. Thus there is a real conflict of interest and the government is trying to address it through cooperatives and farmer-producer organisations.

Q:  Once access to food becomes a right, the political economy of production will empower the large and medium farmers, who will depend on fertilisers and farm equipment to meet the state’s requirement of food grain to be procured under PDS. How can this be addressed?

The Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium – an agency of the ministry of agriculture – is helping farmers (form) farmer-producer organisations to leverage inputs at competitive rates, and market their produce collectively.

Two funds have been specially created for these producer companies – the Equity Fund to provide matching equity and a credit guarantee fund to cover collateral-free loans. These interventions should reduce the dependence of marginal and small farmers on the intermediaries – but this is a process, and will take a few years to pan out.

Q: India has seen a steady migration from the rural to urban areas. Is this healthy?

A: Migration from rural to urban is the natural order of things when economies make the transition from a predominantly agrarian society to an industrial one or, in India’s case, a post-industrial society. The growth in services and manufacturing, ipso facto, has to be higher than growth in core agriculture.

However, efforts need to be made to improve the profitability of agricultural production – by reducing the cost of credit, by improved marketing and public investments in infrastructure.

Q: The new Bill will increase the demand for fertilisers, thereby increasing the fertiliser subsidy and making India more dependent on imports. With the rupee sinking in value, what are the long term implications for India?

A: The dependence on fertiliser, especially imported fertiliser, will grow, at least in the short run. The ministry is trying to move towards a nutrient-based subsidy regime – but if the rupee continues to slide, the situation will indeed be very challenging.

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