Macro-Level Food Security in Sri Lanka: Challenges for Policy Makers and Possible Ways Out

Abstract

Current global food crisis, widening trade deficit, domestic food price inflation, and deterioration o f foreign exchange reserves have created adverse impacts on both macro-and micro level food security in Sri Lanka. This deterioration o f food security status in the country indicates the necessity o f evaluating the effectiveness o f Sri Lanka's agricultural development and poverty reduction programmes in achieving fo o d security. A critical review o f these fo o d security programmes is conducted to identify issues and challenges in achieving availability and access to food at the macro-level in Sri Lanka. The analysis shows that past and current food security programmes lead to increase domestic food production and assist in ensuring macro-level food self-sufficiency. However, an increase in domestic agricultural production is not sufficient to generate high economic growth, which could be able to control adverse impacts from decline in terms of trade, domestic food price inflation, deteriorating foreign exchange reserves, and global food crisis. Therefore, future agricultural development and food security programmes should consider not only increasing domestic food production but also generating high economic growth. It is found that such agricultural development and food security programmes are able to control the adverse impacts on macro-level food security from negative changes in both internal and external macro-economic conditions.