It's August 2019, a former military officer from a powerful political family is campaigning to be Sri Lanka's next leader.
Three months later, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is sworn in as the country's president. He won the election with a new vision for Sri Lanka, including a bold policy for the entire country to switch to wholly organic food production within 10 years.
This plan was hugely ambitious, but it was also deeply flawed. It's now cited as one of the reasons Sri Lanka has sunk into its worst economic crisis for decades, sparking outrage, protest and a u-turn.
At the time that President Rajapaksa was elected, farming related industries were vital to the economy. Around 80% of Sri Lanka's domestic food supply was produced by the country smallholder farmers. It had taken many years to reach that point.
Back in the 1960s, a global initiative to tackle malnutrition in developing nations was rolled out in several countries, including Sri Lanka. It was called the Green Revolution. It boosted production using high yielding varieties of traditional crops. Alongside modern cultivation techniques like nutrient heavy growing methods.
The majority of Sri Lanka's small farmers are poor and can't afford chemical fertilisers without state help. Substantial discounts were introduced, sometimes up to 90% of market prices. The idea of ending the scheme was a step that no politician dared to take. There's another significant price attached to this raw material essential for Sri Lanka's economic growth, the cost of importing it as well as, that Sri Lanka also has to import supplies of sugar, wheat and milk. Traditionally, Sri Lanka has paid for these much needed goods using money makes selling crops like tea, coconut and spices overseas.
Pre pandemic agriculture represented around 20% of the country's total exports. It's paid for in dollars, which boosted Sri Lanka's foreign exchange reserves, which took a big hit when COVID struck early 2020 as the country's lucrative flow of foreign tourists suddenly evaporated. The first cases of CKD or chronic kidney disease of unknown origin emerged in the mid 1990s. By 2021 Sri Lanka become a sea KDU hotspot. So the government decided it was time for an agricultural revolution.
Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa announced last April that he would tackle these health concerns head on with a dramatic new policy, a total ban on chemical fertilisers, Sri Lanka's farms were going to go 100% organic. At the time there were questions about the scientific evidence supporting this plan.
The global market for premium priced organic produce can be lucrative, but not everyone was convinced that would work for Sri Lanka. Organic farming isn't new in Sri Lanka; tea and vegetable growers have been doing it for years on a much smaller scale.
Sri Lanka wasn't the first country to try and go fully organic either. In 2014, the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan announced it would try to make the switch but it struggled to make that happen. Warning signs were there that accelerating to 100% Organic even with years of planning was unfeasible. Back in Sri Lanka, similar concerns from agricultural experts we're ignored. With the world overwhelmed by the COVID pandemic and Sri Lanka's economy already struggling as a result of absent tourists, this organic revolution could not have come at a worse time.
Unknown Speaker @ 5:18:
Saloni Shah is a food and agricultural analyst at the breakthrough Institute and environmental think tank based in California. She says problems with this organic plan emerged right at the beginning of its rollout. While the Sri Lankan government was quick to bring in a ban on chemical fertilisers, it hadn't really thought through what was needed to replace it. Hopes of making money from the rising global demand for organic produce were also overstated. Producing and selling organic food around the world requires detailed inspections and testing over time to meet strict legal standards. None of that was in place. And soon it became clear that farmers faced losing crops and livelihoods. Within just months of it being introduced, the organic plan was crumbling, and public backlash rowing. That sharp drop in rice yields forced the Sri Lankan government towards a drastic and expensive fix. Despite clear failures in the policy, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa reinforced his commitment to organic agriculture of the cop 26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. But just weeks after that speech, and seven months since the project began, Sri Lanka's government was forced into a U turn.
The ongoing after effects of the failed switch to organic farming have only exacerbated Sri Lanka's wider financial crisis. Sri Lanka has defaulted on at least US$51 bln dollars worth of foreign debt so far. It said making repayments from foreign exchange reserves is challenging and impossible, because it still needs to pay for importing essential goods. Pandemic business losses, supply chain interruptions, and soaring inflation have seen shortages of essentials, including medical supplies.
Today the country is experiencing daily extended power cuts because it can't afford to import fuel. Making things worse is an earlier government decision made three years ago when it reduced some taxes even abolished others altogether. And that's revenue the country desperately needs and is now looking to borrow. The chemical fertiliser ban may have been rolled back, but the situation remains critical. The wider financial crisis and increasing public anger recently saw protesters occupy the entrance to the President's Palace. Twentyu-six cabinet members also resigned, leaving the President and his brother, the prime minister in charge, a new cabinet was sworn in. The government has announced a $200 million package to compensate more than a million farmers whose harvests were affected by the chemical fertiliser ban. But Sri Lanka's failed experiment in organic farming has not only caused huge harm to the economy, but it's also damaged an admirable idea.
So why did Sri Lanka's organic farming dream fail? There are economic problems beyond its control, like record global prices for the imported goods it's buying with dwindling foreign exchange funds. But the ban and the fallout are self inflicted. Basic considerations were missed the natural fertiliser shortfall, a lack of preparation time for farmers, and no contingency plans to fill the gap from lower organic yields. The government underestimated the scale and consequences of its policy. It was a short sighted move, which will have consequences for many years to come.
We need to understand what happened in Sri Lanka, and ensure we don’t make drastic changes to our farming system here in New Zealand that could have similar consequences.
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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
19 Comments
Keith, that is the same argument for chemical based agriculture though. It only works as long as we keep chucking the chemicals on as fast as we draw nutrients out of the soil (and in some cases putting it on faster...). When those chemicals get too expensive or run out we get problems...
Yes, it applies for all food systems. But the wheels tend to fall off more quickly within organic systems because of the additional constraints on inputs.
It is also why I lie awake at nights figuring out how future generations can keep the show on the road.
It is also a key reason why I have long been in favour of population policy, and hence immigration, being considered within a resource-based framework. Here is what I wrote a couple of years back.
KeithW
This fails on many fronts , what was the cause of CKD that persuaded them to take such a drastic step in the first place ? Can only presume chemicals were seen as the problem . They need to address this by starting with population control as they are clearly beyond carrying capacity. This article is plainly being used as an attack on organic farming hence the final lines warning of such a situation arising in nz ,as such it fails totally as there is no comparison in the field in nz . We are not walking the line between food shortages and not over populated . This was poorly planned exercise driven by desperation due to a chronic health issue. We should learn from it as we are not immune to agricultural pollutant issues eg nitrates in Christchurch water and other areas . We already have such a reaction hence three waters reform.
I have a Sri Lankan friend and they say Sri Lankans blame the kidney disease epidemic on tainted Chinese fertilisers which was part of the reason for banning them
https://srilankabrief.org/sri-lanka-kidney-disease-blamed-on-farm-chemicals/
Its also what the animals have been fed:
Production advantages, environmental benefits and increasing parasite resistance are changing the composition of New Zealand pastures. Traditional ryegrass/clover pasture mixes are being replaced by forage herb crops such as lu- cerne, chicory and plantain that accumulate a higher concentration of contaminants such as cadmium (Cd). To explore the relationship between Cd in forage crops and the Cd concentration accumulated by animals, four-month-old lambs at four farms across the central North Island of New Zealand were grazed on different forage crops (ryegrass, chicory, lucerne and plantain) between weaning and slaughter. Soil and pasture samples, and sequential liver biopsies, were collected and analysed for total Cd. There were significant differences in Cd concentration between the forage crops (chicory > plantain > lucerne > ryegrass) and this ordering was repeated for Cd in liver. There was no exceedance of maximum limits (ML) for Cd in offal set by the EU and NZ/Australia food safety standards authorities for animals of this study, although the highest concentration of Cd in chicory (0.85 mg/kg DW) was considerably lower than has been recorded elsewhere in New Zealand (4.5 mg/kg DW). Provisional Soil Management Values (SMVs) were de- veloped to explore compliance of liver with EU food standards as a function of grazing chicory. For a soil pH of 5, ex- ceedance might occur at a soil cadmium concentration of 0.34 mg/kg. This concentration falls within Tier 0 of the New Zealand Tiered Fertiliser Management System which seeks to ensure soil Cd remains within acceptable limits over the next 100 years and beyond. Increased Cd uptake by fodder crops and its management in these Tier 0 pastoral soils is therefore an emerging issue for pastoral agriculture. The risk of ML exceedance for animals grazing forage crops such as chicory on low Cd soils should be further considered to ensure uninterrupted access to export markets.
The majority of Sri Lanka's small farmers are poor and can't afford chemical fertilisers without state help. Substantial discounts were introduced, sometimes up to 90% of market prices. The idea of ending the scheme was a step that no politician dared to take.
I wonder what the cost would be here if we subsidised fertiliser to the tune of 90%? My guess is, the initiative was a cost-cutting measure gone wrong more than anything else.
And when I read that, I thought of Working for Families and the Accommodation Supplement.
Kate, ignore the 2019 title below - an informative piece on the impact of subsidies and consequent removal of subsidies (including fert) in 1984 to NZ ag.
https://ahdb.org.uk/news/brexit-perspectives-what-can-we-learn-from-nz
Organic farming in NZ is pretty much based on what you can grow on the farm , partly based on a lack of avaliable certified feeds/ compost to buy in. So a straight conversion is not possible , you must build up your soil and compost before converting. Its a 3-5 year transition. and its not easy , needs lots of advice , and monitoiring .
Its unfortunate that the Sri Lankan experience can now be held up as a reason not to go organic.
Its very much a balanced system , you won't make money , or even survive based on brought in inputs.
The organic association was originally the compost and soil association. Possibly the label organic is more of a hindrance than a help , particularily as consumers become more educated into what the different system are. Or rather , producers have the internet to explain what they are doing in detail .
Argisea couldn't sell their seaweed product to mainstream farmers when it was called Ocean Organics , when it changed its name, sales boomed.
My concern for New Zealand if it went completely organic would be the need to import a whole lot of non-organic food so most people could afford to feed their families. Food is already more expensive than many other countries. As Keith said, it's a balanced system. To feed the world we need inputs, and for a fully organic system those would either come from outside New Zealand, or impoverish soil in New Zealand by growing inputs for the official production land.
It could be done, but there would be some very big trade-offs and from a worldwide production perspective, the world may not be any better off.
The author identified the problem early in his piece. Pursuing economic growth in a bounded system. The illusion this system works is linked to the fantasy of an infinite "somewhere else" as a source of material inputs. For that matter, a mystical "somewhere else" to dump the waste products also.
Tis the poor governance of the Rajapaksa Clan. Started with the ever popular tax cuts, even D Trump did so. Is is a lack of moral fibre, or are non caucasians prone to the temptations of power, money and other delicious sins. Outside of Europe and North America, so many nations are poorly managed. Not saying that developed West is perfect, far from it, just that the banana nations are at the bottom of the heap.
Sadly, Sri Lanka, where my daily tea is grown, has fallen, an impoverished nation.
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