A sound argument

President Mahinda Rajapaksa the other day expounded on the benefits accruing to the country's economy through the shift from wheat to rice consumption by the populace and observed that he was happy to note this gradual change in the dietary habits of the larger masses in recent times.

The President's observation could not be overemphasised especially at a time the country needs to save every single dollar in its kitty in the midst of the present global economic situation.

Addressing the 18th General Summit of the SLFP at Temple Trees the President described the phenomenon as a great national victory. He noted that the habit of consumption of wheat flour based products was forced on us by devious means first by providing wheat free of charge and then on easy payment terms.

The preponderance of wheat and its cheap cost drove people to make it an integral part of their diet.

The President also noted that stepping up local production was the only way to combat global inflation and urged the people to consume more and more rice.

While the over-reliance on wheat has its economic consequences it also has a health fallout, with wheat flour now commonly identified as a cause for aggravating diabetes. Therefore the economic implications of adopting wheat flour into the national dietary programme is many and varied and can have a significant bearing on the national health budget. Hence the President's comments on the economics of wheat flour.

As mentioned by the President wheat was literally forced down our throats by the British during the Second World War period and the habit caught on to such an extent that wheat flour based products became our staple replacing the age old rice.

Our colonial masters who engineered many a sleight of hand project to undermine national unity such as the divide and rule concept also took care to ensure the country's economic downfall and craftily introduced the locals to wheat flour so that the country would be forever dependent on wheat imports even long after they had left our shores thus maintaining a stranglehold on the local economy.

The recent overwhelming subsidies offered to the wheat farmer in the West was also directed at craftily exploiting this captive market to continue the business.

There were many attempts by past Governments after realising the folly to get the people to convert more and more into the rice eating habit in a bid to break this economic stranglehold on us exerted by the West. But after initial capitulation the people by and large reverted to the old habit resulting in an ever mounting wheat import bill which the country could ill afford. The ultimate beneficiaries were the farmers of the West while their local rice growing counterparts wallowed in misery with some even driven to suicide.

The instant nature of wheat flour based items such as bread, their economy etc. all contributed to make the products popular with the masses. It is in this context that the recent experiment to popularise rice flour based products should be commended.

It is hoped more and more experiments would be carried out to make rice based products popular with the masses and gradually wean them from the addiction to wheat flour products.

It is certainly an indictment on us as a nation boasting of a 2,500 year old civilisation driven by an agriculture economy and earning such sobriquets as the rice bowl and granary of the East, that we are still dependent on the West to feed our people whose forefathers build vast reservoirs, tanks and Dagobas on the strength derived from the humble rice crop.

President Rajapaksa who had been reared and brought up in a milieu that breathed the air of these warriors of the past may wish his countrymen to reinvent the cycle to hark back to those glory days when Lankans were a proud race nurtured on its indigenous harvests.