Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Crates or Sacks?

If you are living in Sri Lanka, you would definitely be aware of the major commotion related to the change in laws for transporting vegetables. Most seem to think the intention behind enforcing such a law is good, but the process of planning and implementing is poor.

On one side, the farming community (including the middle-man, or should I say middle-person?) are trying to save every cent to maximize profit. On the other side we seem to have a minister who is not willing to compromise having being frustrated by delays in enforcing the law and also smarting from a slightly bruised ego.

I quite like the article below (if you ignore the political brownie points it seems to be trying to score). Looks like this Harsha dude knows what he is talking about (at least in this instance).

http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1755694470

So what is your take on this? A country like India seems to be wasting as much as 40% of veggies during transportation and storage. I believe it is much less here in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, will crates save a considerable amount of wastage as indicated by the minister? Or is he just trying to get rid of some plastic items probably offloaded to us by our big brother China? Do the farmers have solid reasons to oppose such a law? Or are they just resisting change just for the sake of it?

Let's have your say friends....

2 comments:

UDITHA WIJESENA said...

Yes the problem is multifaceted. Cargills I know do not take in low quality vegetable from the farmer. Many who supply them use crates to maintain quality. Tea leaves collecting factories from small holders now use the crate which I feel is a law to maintain quality.

Right now to overcome the problem of protest the gov; should identify the most perishable vegetables such as tomatoes, leeks and even carrots to be transported in crates while cabbage being large for the crates be allowed in ventilated poly-sacks. This could avoid the mayhem and get things normalized for now.

Bimmy said...

I agree with you Uditha. Wonder if things are working out now,... I don't see any protests or the authorities cracking down on that anymore.