NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
Unexpected (or perhaps intended?)
From Foreign Policy News:
Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka halted a ill-advised national experiment in organic farming this winter. President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised during his 2019 election campaign transform the country’s peasants to organic farming for a period of time ten many years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the import and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and ordering 2 million farmers to of the country using organic products.
The results are brutal and quick. Against claims that organic methods can produce yields comparable to conventional farming, rice production in the country fell 20% in the first six months alone. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, was forced to import $450 million the value of rice even as domestic prices for the national dietary staple increase by about 50 percent. The ban has also devastated the nation’s tea tree, the country’s main export and source of supply Forex.
By November 2021, with tea production falling, the government partially lifted the fertilizer ban on key export crops, including tea, rubber and coconut. Faced with angry protests, soaring inflation and the fall of Sri Lanka currency, the government finally suspended the policy for a number of key crops – including tea, rubber and coconut – last month, though it continued on a number of other crops. The government is also providing 200 million dollars to farmers as direct compensation and an additional $149 million in subsidies for rice farmers at a loss. That can barely make up for the damage and being subject to the ban. Farmers were generous be censured underpayments massively and excluded many farmers, especially tea producers, who provide one of the main sources of employment in rural Sri Lanka. The decline in tea production alone is estimated to result in economic losses 425 million dollars.
The human cost is even greater. Before the pandemic broke out, the country made a proud achievement above-average income status. Today, half a million people sink into poverty. Fly inflationary and quickly currency devaluation forced Sri Lankans to cut back on food and fuel purchases as prices soar. The country’s economists have called on the government default repay debt to buy essential items for the people.
The alienation of magical thinking, technocratic arrogance, ideological delusions, self-discipline and short-sightedness have created a crisis in Sri Lanka involving even the political leadership of the land. countries and advocates of so-called sustainable agriculture: the former is to capture the commitment to organic agriculture as a short-sighted measure to cut fertilizer and import subsidies and the latter suggests that Such a transformation of the country’s agricultural sector could be successful.
Full story this.
Meanwhile, our agricultural policy also seems to be dictated by the same kind of stupidity:
https://www.gov.uk/go Government/news/go Government-unveils-path-to-sustainable-farming-from-2021
Perhaps feeding the world should take precedence over “carbon storage”?
Of course, many of Juniper’s ilks would like to see a much smaller global population. Who needs fertilizer!
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