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Agricultural sector : labour shortages and price collapse despite exemption

Around 30% of the population in Sri Lanka engage in agriculture, though the sector’s contribution to GDP is as low as 10% (2015 data). Rice is the main food crop (40%) grown in Sri Lanka followed by the plantation crop sector (38%), comprised mainly of tea, rubber and coconut. The sector has been affected by low productivity, water and land use inefficiency and high post-harvest losses for a long time. Being the 2nd in the Global Climate Risk Index, the Sri Lankan agricultural sector has also been experiencing the effects of changing climate and natural disasters. This has, however, given an incentive for the farmers to shift towards climate smart agriculture. In line with this emerging trend, government adopted many measures to modernize the agricultural sector with support from the World Bank and other donor agencies. 
Compared to the industry and service sectors, Sri Lanka’s agriculture has so far been least affected by the COVID19 outbreak, as the sector is only loosely integrated with global supply chains. However, the effect of the pandemic on the agricultural sector is still comparable to that in other countries in the region. An estimated 2.1 million agricultural households are at a risk of losing their livelihoods despite various measures taken by the government to safeguard agricultural supply chains. Broader measures are needed to keep the food supply chains alive and mitigate the impacts across the food systems. Though the lockdown exempted farming operations and food supply chains from the beginning, implementation problems caused severe labour shortages and price collapse in wholesale markets. Given the circumstances, the Government initiated a program to procure fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers to ease the problem of limited wholesale markets.

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