ExpressLane
Verified User
With its president fleeing amid widespread protests, Sri Lanka has been plunged deeper into an ever spiraling political crisis. It’s easy to forget in this meltdown, but the economic turmoil that has brought the South Asian nation to this point was precipitated by its disastrous shift to organic farming—posing new questions about the viability of sustainable agriculture. The Indian Ocean island of 22 million would have been the first to transition to organic farming nationwide. Instead, it sank into its worst social unrest.
The country in disarray, political parties are desperately trying to cobble together an all-party government. Hours before he was supposed to officially step down, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Maldives on Wednesday after protesters stormed and occupied his palace.
Nearly two years ago, the same Rajapaksa, having consolidated the grip of his powerful political dynasty—by installing his brother (and former president) Mahinda as prime minister—told a United Nations summit that Sri Lanka had been experiencing “increasing use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and weedicides that led to adverse health and environmental impacts”. The use of these instruments of industrial farming were incongruent with the “sustainable food systems” of Sri Lankan heritage, he declared.......
Torn between current livelihood issues and long-term hazards, politicians tend to tiptoe around the problems of modern farming. Rajapaksa has been an exception. In his 2019 election campaign, he promised to move Sri Lanka to organic farming in a decade. He made good on that promise last spring, issuing a blanket order to ban all imports of agrochemicals.
More than two million farmers, or around 27% of the national labor force, were left scrambling for natural fertilizers. The government failed to increase domestic production of organic pesticides and fertilizers, or provide farmers with subsidies to buy these. The sudden policy shift wrecked crop yields. Rice, Sri Lanka’s dietary staple that it used to produce adequately and even exported, saw average yields slashed by some 30%. For the first time in decades, Sri Lanka had to import rice. The production of tea, the country’s prime export, fell by 18%, crimping its foreign exchange earnings. Bending to protests by farmers, the agrochemical import ban was eased in November. But there was still no going back to subsidizing chemical fertilizers like before......
https://time.com/6196570/sri-lanka-crisis-organic-farming/
==============================================
The government forced the shift to green new deal organic farming has destabilized the country causing the president to flee the country. It may well lead to starvation. America should take note.
The country in disarray, political parties are desperately trying to cobble together an all-party government. Hours before he was supposed to officially step down, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Maldives on Wednesday after protesters stormed and occupied his palace.
Nearly two years ago, the same Rajapaksa, having consolidated the grip of his powerful political dynasty—by installing his brother (and former president) Mahinda as prime minister—told a United Nations summit that Sri Lanka had been experiencing “increasing use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and weedicides that led to adverse health and environmental impacts”. The use of these instruments of industrial farming were incongruent with the “sustainable food systems” of Sri Lankan heritage, he declared.......
Torn between current livelihood issues and long-term hazards, politicians tend to tiptoe around the problems of modern farming. Rajapaksa has been an exception. In his 2019 election campaign, he promised to move Sri Lanka to organic farming in a decade. He made good on that promise last spring, issuing a blanket order to ban all imports of agrochemicals.
More than two million farmers, or around 27% of the national labor force, were left scrambling for natural fertilizers. The government failed to increase domestic production of organic pesticides and fertilizers, or provide farmers with subsidies to buy these. The sudden policy shift wrecked crop yields. Rice, Sri Lanka’s dietary staple that it used to produce adequately and even exported, saw average yields slashed by some 30%. For the first time in decades, Sri Lanka had to import rice. The production of tea, the country’s prime export, fell by 18%, crimping its foreign exchange earnings. Bending to protests by farmers, the agrochemical import ban was eased in November. But there was still no going back to subsidizing chemical fertilizers like before......
https://time.com/6196570/sri-lanka-crisis-organic-farming/
==============================================
The government forced the shift to green new deal organic farming has destabilized the country causing the president to flee the country. It may well lead to starvation. America should take note.
