Consumers to get a taste of rice flour

ANURADHAPURA: A programme to popularise rice flour among consumers by setting up rice flour milling centres at rural level will be launched soon with the assistance of State banks said Agrarian Services and Farmer Community Development Minister S.M. Chandrasena.

He was addressing a meeting held at the Anuradhapura Agrarian Services centre to mark the distribution of a consignment of two wheel tractors received under a Japanese aid scheme, among farmers in the area.

The Minister who admitted that a certain amount of injustice had been caused to farmers in the paddy purchasing exercise due to the activities of the private traders who had obtained low interest loans from banks said that the government had been able to purchase a bigger stock of paddy from farmers this Maha season than the Yala season.

Altogether the government had purchased almost 20 per cent of the produce from farmers. It has been planned to purchase a much larger stock of paddy during the next Yala season, he assured.

Chandrasena who accused private traders of disrupting the government's paddy purchasing exercise this season said the private sector will not be allowed to disrupt the governments programme aimed to uplift the livelihood of farmers. It has also been planned to distribute two wheel tractors among all agrarian service centres at the rate of 50 each, he added.