Sri Lankans now pay over 40% more for rice and 50% more for coconut oil

Prices of samba rice have risen by over 40 percent and price of coconut oil have risen by a little under 50 percent in the twelve months to May 2021 despite record paddy harvest for two years in a row, while the government banned import of palm oil. The government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa recently banned the importation of chemical fertilizer and other agrochemicals to make Sri Lanka the first country ever to practice organic-only agriculture. 

The plantation sector was caught off guard and believes the move could plunge the country into a food crisis at a time when it is battling the worst pandemic in more than a century. 

Continuing the ascent seen in rice prices, prices of the category identified as ‘Average Samba’ rose by 46 percent in the twelve months to the second week of May 2021, while the ‘Samba No. 1’ category referred to as ‘Keeri Samba’ rose by 41.6 percent during the same period, the data collected by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) from the main markets in the Colombo district showed.

While the categories identified as ‘Average Samba’ and ‘Keeri Samba’ have ranged from Rs.135 to 160 a kilogram during the week, according to the data collected by the Department, the latter was retailing up to Rs.210 a kilogram in the market, up from around Rs.185 a kilogram during the third week in April. 

According to DCS, the two categories were selling at Rs.102.01 and Rs.105.22 a kilogram respectively a year ago. Meanwhile, people pay between 10.1 percent to 17.8 percent higher for rice categories for ‘Raw White Average’ and ‘Nadu’ from what they paid a year earlier for the same categories. 

Mirror Business recently showed that few rice millers are holding the government hostage controlling the rice prices using their dominant market power.

As the government started to purchase paddy at a guaranteed price of Rs.50 since last year, millers started to outbid the government to purchase paddy at rates ranging from Rs.55 to Rs.80, leading to the prevailing higher prices for rice, Sri Lankan’s primary food staple. 

Meanwhile, the data also showed that the price of a bottle of 750ml coconut oil had risen by a whopping 48.5 percent in the year through May second week to a price range of Rs.500-Rs.600, up from an average price of Rs.365.89 a year ago. 

The government in the first week of April clamped down on palm oil imports and told producers to uproot the existing plantations in a phased manner, befuddling the edible oil industry.

Now the local coconut oil producers have field day as the consumer is paying virtually 50 percent more for the same amount of coconut oil a year ago, making Sri Lankans impoverished. 

People say they could hardly afford coconut oil in April to make sweet meets and won’t light oil lamps for Vesak as they lost incomes for COVID related restrictions on their livelihoods, dealing a double whammy on their lives - rising prices and losing incomes.