Mafia controlling vegetable prices

By Saliya Kumara Gunasekara

Retail prices of vegetables have gone up by 100%, in the recent past, according to the Dambulla special economic centre sources.
But the government blames the vegetable sellers and the large scale vegetable cultivators for adopting fraudulent strategies to keep the vegetable prices steep.
According to the Dambulla special economic centre, the price of a kilogram of vegetables has gone up as follows: green chillies-Rs.300, capsicum-Rs.250, knol-khol-Rs.100, tomatoes-Rs.150,beetroot-Rs.150,carrot-Rs.210,leeks-Rs.170,beans-Rs.110 and cabbage-Rs.80. Officials say that this is the highest price hike for vegetables in five years.
The officials of the Ministry of Agriculture used to say that the prices of vegetables went up due to the bad weather conditions. They predicted that the prices would come down in August. Yet, the officials in the economic centres say that the price hike may continue for sometime.

Small scale farmers

There are reasons such as the price hikes of fertilizers, agro-chemicals and labour costs, which impacted on the involvement of small scale farmers in vegetable cultivation. Thus, there is a monopoly of large scale farmers.
Instead of the normal stock of 300,000 kg per day, the economic centre in Dambulla only gets a vegetable stock of 50,000 kg these days.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Consumer Affairs Authority Rumy Marzook ordered all the retail vegetable stall owners at the Manning Market to put up a display of prices for each variety of vegetable and fruit.
Yet, we don’t see many vegetable stalls displaying their lists. These actions of the businessmen are now subject to intense investigation of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Internal Trade.
Meanwhile, increased poultry exports are expected as there is an annual deficit of 3000 metric tonnes of poultry. However, those in the poultry industry point out that there is a prospect of a breakdown in the local poultry industry if this happens.