Sri Lanka Organic Farming Disaster

foreignpolicy.com...

Most of Sri Lanka’s leading agricultural experts were kept out of crafting the agricultural section of the platform, which included promises to phase out synthetic fertilizer, develop 2 million organic home gardens to help feed the country’s population, and turn the country’s forests and wetlands over to the production of biofertilizer...The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.

sounds like college-educated idiot politicians forced new-age dream policies on a country that wasn't ready for it.
when will these people learn you can't wave a magic wand and create technology.

the working poor of Sri Lanka paying the price for the elite's idiocy. sad. hope they recover soon.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The "I told you so" is great and all but these crazy new age leftist clowns are destroying almost every aspect of society to function properly . In tHe nAmE oF GrEeN

The problem really isn't them with their radical uneducated ideas....

Its the fools who vote for them and keep them in power. This voter base doesn't have mental capacity to vote. Which means they are being indoctrinated by the leftist media. These are the two critical parts that needs to be addressed... They really don't care if the world burns aslong as they can rule the ashes.

a reply to: ElGoobero

a reply to: ElGoobero

This will sound cruel, perhaps, but the biggest problem is in the past.

Industrial comercial agriculture practices resulted in a boom in food production. This allowed for increased population growth since there was food to help people thrive and make raising larger families easier.

The problem is that the industrial comercial agriculture model is fragile and not really long-term sustainable for reasons that are becoming evident now. What happened in Sri Lanka by design is happening now world-wide (arguably be design as well, though not the same design and not with the same intent).

So many aspects and advances of modern technology are implemented not because we should but because we can. The planet has passed through this unprecedented phase of "prosperity" and as we've shifted - culturally, sociologically and economically - into high overdrive, our engine is about to blow.

In order to go back to using old methods, the seed needs to be Heritage. Over the decades, the plants adapted to the pesticides and fertilizers and altered their gene expression and this may have created some extra losses of crop potential. Along with that, if you shut down the immune system of a plant by giving it pesticides to fight, it increases the growth of the plant but alters it's ability to fight anything not covered by the pesticide or miticide. And also with years of use of pesticides and miticides and even commercial fertilizer, the microbes in the soil have changed, so organic pesticides and fertilizers may not work as well for many years. You see, to build soils you need microbes...pesticides and mitocides take many years to completely break down. once you use roundup, the next five to ten years just adding phosphates to the soil will reactivate the organophosphates and weeds won't grow. You do not have to put roundup in the garden every year. But the companies selling roundup do not tell people this occurs, now they want people to think it needs to be done every year which can ruin the microbia of the soils over the years.

Nothing wrong with some NPK in the soils as long as the process producing those does not leave some bad stuff in it. I use a little 10-10-10 ocassionally, but not nearly what they say, I prefer to subsidize the soils with it if I draw too much out to quick. I will never use synthetic stuff knowingly though. Micronutrients in the soil that are bioavailable is important too, this is in old farming literature on how to use crop rotation to build nutrients for some crops.

a reply to: incoserv

Yes like don't feed the stay cats, monkeys and bears!
Any return to normal balance would take time.

a reply to: ElGoobero

should have used chicken sh@@, that stuff will make anything grow like crazy. but use to much it burn it up. to much nitrogen.

Commercial farming practice is terrible for everything other than yield, all filler, no killer. It's garbage really, destroys the soil, has poor nutrient quality..I can go on.

So, their idea was in line with better practices, but maybe poorly implemented. I think a 20% decrease in yield is probably not unusual in an organic farm vs full on chem farming.

Another world leader forgetting the great leap forward and why things have to be gradually changed to allow room for problems to be worked out

Just wait untell a state finally bans fossil fuels can't import ur way out of that

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: ElGoobero

should have used chicken sh@@, that stuff will make anything grow like crazy. but use to much it burn it up. to much nitrogen.

Quite true. Some lime, or letting it sit for a month will stop it from burning up your plants.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: ElGoobero

should have used chicken sh@@, that stuff will make anything grow like crazy. but use to much it burn it up. to much nitrogen.

Quite true. Some lime, or letting it sit for a month will stop it from burning up your plants.

Lime will regulate the PH

a reply to: ElGoobero

This is so near and dear to my heart. I am 100% for all organic methods of growing.

The problem is we didn’t go all commercial farming overnight, and reverting shouldn’t be done in the same manner.
This is also a perfect example if tshtf. People think farming/gardening is so easy until they really do it for survival!
Many farmers throughout history have starved to death. All it takes is a bad weather year, a bad pest year, or bad seed year. All three and it can be catastrophic.

There is another reality we don’t talk about much. How many humans live in places not hospitable to human life. In order to live there they have to do crazy things to the environment to support it. Places like Las Vegas come to mind.

a reply to: ElGoobero

There's also the Chinese fertilizer shipments issue that wouldn't have helped either.

link

As others have mentioned commercial farming practices kind of ruin ecologies. I'm more inclined to believe the Sri Lankan government are more to blame for these failings than elitist leftist policies. Too many places around the world are a few decisions away from dust bowl like events.

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: incoserv

Yes like don't feed the stay cats, monkeys and bears!
Any return to normal balance would take time.

And be incredibly painful.

Yeah, college educated Right 👍..

I mean they are definitely big idiots.


Who wants educated people making decisions.

When first run hypothesis don't pan out..just quit..

I mean who needs improvement and progress?

a reply to: ElGoobero

It’s not necessarily a bad decision if everyone is armed with the knowledge, time and things you need to go fully organic. You can’t just cut it off.

originally posted by: LastFirst
Yeah, college educated Right 👍..

I mean they are definitely big idiots.


Who wants educated people making decisions.

When first run hypothesis don't pan out..just quit..

I mean who needs improvement and progress?

somebody who spent 10 years studying agriculture, sure
liberal arts major that took one course in apocalyptic ecology, no.
this is why governments have departments. the Postmaster doesn't manage agriculture policy and an agronomist doesn't manage the post office.

too many poli sci majors are in charge with all the wrong ideas on energy, food, etc. the world is too complex to think generalists should micromanage specialists.

While the shift towards organic was too drastic, it is necessary since we are estimated to reach peak phosphorus in 10 years. Organic farming is also simply better for the soil and therefore better for humans.

originally posted by: vonclod
Commercial farming practice is terrible for everything other than yield, all filler, no killer. It's garbage really, destroys the soil, has poor nutrient quality..I can go on.

So, their idea was in line with better practices, but maybe poorly implemented. I think a 20% decrease in yield is probably not unusual in an organic farm vs full on chem farming.

Maybe(?) poorly implemented?

Thanks to how they went about it, Sri Lanka is in the throws of complete economic crash. They don't even have enough gas for the country, and they don't have enough money to bring in any more. This more than just having to import food. It had ramifications all throughout the economy because the economy was entirely ag dependent. It caused all their revenue to crash.

Not only can they not feed their people, but they can't afford to import other necessary goods they need.

They are defaulting on debt. They cannot borrow to bring anything, from food to gas, in.

This is a massive disaster in the works.

Maybe their 'phase out' was too aggressive. There is nothing wrong with the idea of all organic farming. But it took years to shift to an 'all pesticides on everything' style so it must be re-learned to go organic. You don't just stop using pesticides and call it good. There are all types of ways to shift to organic but it must be done correctly. A lot depends on the type of soil and it's quality. Synthetic fertilizers can cause long term damage to soil and it may take years to reclaim the soil as organic. Organic usually takes more labor and the yields overall are not at the same levels of synthetic fertilizers. So adjustments must be made in the transition. It really is a sad situation because this is what happened:

In November 2021, Sri Lanka abandoned its plan to become the world's first organic farming nation following rising food prices and weeks of protests against the plan.

a reply to: ElGoobero

I got tired of trolling tinfoil hats some years ago, so I rarely come on ATS now. But I have to say that, whenever I do, I still find some rare and colourful treasures of arrant bloody nonsense. Here's one:

sounds like college-educated idiot politicians

It’s obvious, just from this, that you don't know the first thing about Sri Lanka.

Here, read this. It's from 2017 but things have only got worse since then. (Oh, and -- to help you, since you evidently know so little about the world beyond the bottom of your street, O-levels are equivalent a US high school diploma in most countries that actually speak English.)

Never mind, never mind. Don't feel so bad. All your ATS pals on this thread are just as clueless. They couldn’t find Sri Lanka on a map if they tried. Some of them hadn't even heard of the place till some MAGA propagandist told them it was the world's top example of Organic Farming Bad. Which it isn't. Not at all.

Above Top Secret. Where the ignorant come to deny that they are ignorant.