Sri Lankans' consume more rice, less flour 

Lankans’ annual rice production has gone up making the country 117% self sufficient in rice due to continuous fertilizer subsidy programme continued by the government for the last six years.

As a result of the rapid increase in local food production mainly the staple food - rice , the authorities said that the annual per-capita wheat flour consumption has come down rapidly. it has now come down to 28kg in 2011 from its earlier records of 41Kg.                              

 

The Minister of Mass Media and Information Keheliya Rambukwella told the media that the Government has taken  steps to uplift the local food productions as the country was earlier known as  a flour eating nation though Sri Lanka does not produce wheat.
Rice Production has reached the targets set by the Agriculture Ministry and the country did not import rice despite the island-wide floods experienced in January. On the contrary Sri Lanka exports several nutritious varieties of rice to Middle East and Europe at present.
“As we are self sufficient in rice a campaign held to popularize rice consumption has produced encouraging results” said the minister
Minister also refuted the claim that locally produced rice is contaminated with arsenic.
Rice Research and Development Institute and Registrar of Pesticides have conducted several scientific tests in this regard and confirmed that arsenic was not detected in rice varieties.