Vegetable Johnny of Sri Lanka rots vegi farmer and markets

Many economic centers and agricultural areas of Sri Lanka were in chaos today while police used tear gas to disperse angry farmers in Dambulla.

The economic town turned into a battlefield as farmers also pelt stones at police, eyewitness reports say.
Following the lorries that transported vegetable in gunny bags were arrested by police and fined, the Manning Market vendors did not make orders for today paralyzing the fruit and vegetable market. A protest was held by them too.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Cooperatives and Internal Trade Johnston Fernando vowed that the decision to make use of plastic crates compulsory would not be revoked despite protests since the decision was taken following careful study to prevent post harvest wastage.

Protests against the use of plastic crates for the transportation of vegetables and fruits were held in Bandarawela, Ranna, Kandapola, Puttalam and Norochchola areas too.

Sri Lanka government's strict laws to stop waste of vegetables and fruits has affected vegetable market and it is causing more wastage, market sources say.

A large number of lorries carrying vegetable and fruit in gunny bags were stopped yesterday at the Peliyagoda new bridge by Army and Police and the vehicles were fined heavily.

Manning vegetable market of Colombo was short of supplies today due to this reason both yesterday and today, market sources said.

Farmers say they need extra money to buy crates and need vehicles to transport the crates back home due to this law. They say they cannot add these extra costs to the price of vegetables.

Meanwhile the vendors say they can transport less amount of vegetables in crates and the transport costs go up.

What the consumers say is that they need vegetables at lower price and they would not mind how they were transported.