Sugar and Milk powder

Last week I heard on the radio that our president has said that Sri Lanka is spending several billion rupees to import milk powder and sugar and similar stuff. She has said that we should produce them instead of importing them so that we could save a lot of money. My god. Does this mean that all this time we had the capability to produce all the sugar and milk powder needed right here but was spending billions of rupees just because the president didn't think that we should do so? What the hell was she doing all this time? If she got this bright idea 10 years ago when she came into power, how much money could we have saved?