Behind the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka is a catastrophic decision to force all the nation’s farmers to go organic. Tom Leonard in MailOnline has more.
From the ethically sourced produce shops of Islington to the chemical-free acres of the Prince of Wales’s Highgrove farm, you could almost hear the cheering three years ago when Sri Lanka’s future president pledged a revolution.
It wouldn’t be on the streets but in the fields – as Gotabaya Rajapaksa vowed in his successful 2019 election campaign to transform the country into the world’s first fully organic farming nation.
Parroting the claims made for years by Prince Charles and fellow advocates of ‘sustainable farming’, the politician cited health and environmental reasons for this drastic move – in particular brandishing unproven claims of a link between chemical fertilisers and Sri Lanka’s high rate of chronic kidney disease.
Rajapaksa’s commitment to producing 100% of Sri Lanka’s food organically within a decade was accompanied by a ban on the use of all chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.
The consequences have been nothing short of catastrophic. Going organic – the bold, modern vision of the UK’s green lobby – has triggered the devastation of Sri Lanka’s economy, plunging much of its 22 million-strong population into desperate straits.
The chaos that has engulfed the country – including growing poverty, long queues for essentials, lethal street battles and attacks on the homes of government leaders – is a direct result of this one decision.
Rajapaksa’s announcement last April that the country’s two million farmers had to go organic overnight – and the disaster that has followed – is a timely lesson for all those who have been swept up by the hype surrounding organic food and its promise not only to improve our health but also to help save the planet.
Ironically, Sri Lanka had one of the strongest performing economies in Asia. In 2019, the World Bank upgraded its status to that of an upper middle-income country – only to reverse its decision just months after Rajapaksa was elected.
Soon after he ordered the organic transition, agronomists from the Sri Lanka Agricultural Economics Association warned he was making a terrible mistake. For all his concerns about water contamination, soil degradation, kidney disease and biodiversity damage, the cons of going organic far outweighed the pros, they said.
Studies show crop yields drop by an alarming 30% under organic farming. Since the 1960s, Sri Lanka has subsidised farmers to use synthetic fertiliser, the main catalyst for the doubling of yields for many crops.
Outside the echo chamber of sustainable farming advocates, chemical fertilisers, along with pesticides and herbicides, are universally accepted as essential tools for modern agriculture.
Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on rice to feed itself and on tea to export. Forcing the producers of both crops to go entirely organic, warned experts, would drastically lower their yields – by 35% and 50% respectively. Rice is a nitrogen-intensive crop and is therefore tricky and expensive to grow without chemical fertilisers.
But Rajapaksa and his Government wouldn’t listen to the warnings. When his brother, Mahinda, was president a decade ago, he also encouraged organic farming.
They will no doubt have been motivated by Sri Lanka’s growing reputation as a top destination for eco-tourists, who are drawn to luxury hotels that serve organic food, produced on their own farms.
Shunning conventional food production experts, the Rajapaksas have taken guidance from a cranky ‘civil society movement’ called Viyathmaga, which sums up its values as “Spiritual inside, Technocrat outside”.
Worth reading in full.
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There are no doubt a good few old A340s in service with commercial services that don’t have their flaps fail to retract on their revenue-earning services.
I think the Luftwaffe needs to up its maintenance game somewhat.
Not with the budget they have.
“I think the Luftwaffe needs to up its maintenance game somewhat.”
Some of us might prefer that they didn’t.
Wir verenden Annalena!
Baerbock is infamous for her inability to use the correct polysyllabic words in German sentences. One of her famous wrong statements (from the election campaign) was Wir verenden Europa! What she obviously meant to say was Wir vollenden Europa! — we’ll finally turn the EU into what it should always have become, this being code language for We really want to get rid of the German nation state. (and preferably, also all others). The verb she used instead – verenden – means dying, usually of animals, due to old age or succumbing to injuries.
Germanys very own Kamala Harris
So what? Apart from the waste of money, what’s the problem?
I seem to remember that one of the reasons why Ursula Von der Leyen was moved on by Mutti from her role as defence minister was because she couldn’t keep Mutti’s Luftwaffe operated executive transport in the air long enough for Mutti to go anywhere. But the had very nice crèche facilities. It looks like nothing much has changed.
Yeah.. the German Defence Minister Von Der Liar.. the one who couldn’t keep the German army in boots.. says it all.. move her to the EU Commission where she can screw up everything good and proper.. job done..
Now, that’s a great story.
Well knock me down with a feather! Their loyalty to the cause will always be rewarded. *Behind a paywall but the ‘Esc’ trick worked*.
”Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s former deputy chief medical officer who became one face of the government Covid pandemic response, has taken a job as senior medical consultant at vaccine giant Moderna.
The move is likely to prompt fresh consideration of the “revolving door” for prominent government figures who move into business roles.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jonathan-van-tam-job-moderna-vaccine-b2395006.html
Or as they like to put it nowadays, “There are fears the move will only encourage the conspiracy theorists who say there is a revolving door…”
There is no shame involved with these dirty dirty lying po faced Barstewards ! I had him pegged as a complete sh1thouse with his regular televised public covid procrastinations ! Bought & Paid for duplicitous Chunt ! Where,s a lamppost when you need one
I can just imagine the ceremony if the “priceless cultural artefacts” were handed over.
1st aborigine “Pressies!”
Baerbock “There’s this”
1st aborigine “What is it?”
2nd aborigine “It’s a stick”
1st aborigine “Is it a stick, Baerbock”
Baerbock “Yes, but it’s a special kind of stick. When you give it away it comes back”
Slight caricature of Black Adder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTdnWLMLDA
I don’t deny the cultural value of the artefacts, which have their devotees on the antiques market.
But just imagine a contemporary parallel to the giving of gifts to long-serving missionaries bringing faith, or maybe education and medical care, in the nineteenth century.
“You teenage English volunteers have helped us so much here in [name developing country] by building us a school and showing us how to pipe fresh water from the well you dug. We have little, but would like to thank you by giving in return some of the locally woven fabric you see every day in our clothing to remember us by.”
“No, we can’t possibly accept that, because it is cultural appropriation. But maybe a couple of those imported Swiss Army knives?”
Or, being naive teenagers, perhaps they’d accept, only to be castigated by the sending organisation, whose CEO has to take a special flight and Land Rover trip to return the roll of cloth.
Couldn’t she have posted the sticks?
Isn’t she the innumerate politician who referred to an about face as a 360 degree turn?
Yes.
Another famous one would be that she got once trapped in a discussion about EV batteries and lenghtyly blathered about these containing kobold. No one can really tell if she confused this with cobalt or possibly actually believes it. She isn’t very technical. She also once referred to eastern Ukraine as Ostkokaine — eastern cocaine.
Sorry to hear she has so much trouble with her flaps
I think we all know full well what the purpose of the trip was: a nice little holiday, courtesy of German taxpayers.
Spot on..
Its a toss-up between what dies first.. Germany or its politicians.. the only way Germany won’t is if its present day politicians do.. excluding the AFD of course..