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Sri Lanka: City Resilience Through Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture

However, merely growing food closer to the city is not enough. More needs to be done to strengthen the existing infrastructure in the food value chain.

By Anisha Gooneratne
Groundviews
on 12/11/2022

Excerpt:

Diminishing crop yields, high inflation, along with disruptions to global supply chains, and bans on imported items have left Sri Lanka grappling with serious and worrying levels of food insecurity. For those based in Colombo, the risk of food insecurity is much greater compared to rural areas, considering they bear a higher degree of expenditure on non-food items such as rent and transport, leaving only a little to be spent on food. This, combined with the higher prices of food in Colombo compared to other areas of the country, leaves Colombo exposed to a greater degree of risk of food insecurity. With the city’s population expected to grow to nearly 3 million by 2035 the need to build resilience in the city by strengthening food systems interacting with Colombo is essential to ensure food security for its residents. With the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) piloting urban agriculture in their gardens, perhaps the time has come to think of moving production closer to the capital.

The problem

Despite its population density, there is close to no agricultural production being undertaken in Colombo to support the demand for food. Currently, distribution of food to the city of Colombo is not planned according to the closest production source, which has resulted in food being transported across the country from the North Central and Eastern Provinces, approximately 265 km away from Colombo. Variation in distance has resulted in fluctuating food prices with the price of food being higher in Colombo compared to other regions that are closer to the source of production. As highlighted in this article, while your food could be grown in your neighbourhood, it is likely that it will travel all the way to Dambulla before it finds its way back to Colombo.

Read the complete article here.