Sri Lanka seeks UN help on food shortages

• Sri Lanka seeks UN assistance to build a stockpile of essential foods.
• Around half of Sri Lanka’s rice production was lost last year.
• The government has since defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka is seeking urgent UN assistance to build a stockpile of essential foods the prime minister’s office said Friday after authorities warned of impending starvation.

Acute food, fuel, and other essential goods shortages, as well as record inflation and rolling blackouts, have wreaked havoc on the island nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.

Scarce supplies of petrol, diesel, and fertilizer have made it difficult for farmers to grow crops, while the agricultural sector is still reeling from a disastrous organic policy that kneecapped yields last year.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is now planning a “food crisis response plan” to shore up reserves and will also offer more funds for urban agriculture, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said in a statement.

Parliamentary speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana warned in April that Sri Lanka was facing “very acute food shortages and starvation”.

Around half of Sri Lanka’s rice production was lost last year, and the latest cultivation season which started last month has been disrupted because of fertilizer shortages.

Read more: Sri Lanka appeals for farmers to plant more rice

Sri Lanka’s painful economic crunch was sparked by a shortage of foreign currency, leaving traders unable to pay for critical imports, including fertilizer.

The government has since defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt and is seeking an International Monetary Fund bailout.

Most of Sri Lanka’s fertilizer is imported, but last year President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced a ban on foreign agrochemicals as the country’s foreign reserves began running out.

The policy was billed as an attempt to make Sri Lanka the world’s first 100 percent organic farming nation, but it was abruptly halted after farmers abandoned their fields.

After warning that the scheme could lead to famine by the end of this year, the head of the agricultural ministry was promptly fired last December.

Read more: Sri Lanka runs out of money to feed animals