A food crisis of the government’s own making

Context: Sri Lanka’s decision to ban imports on chemical fertilizers was not backed by scientific evidence.

Sri Lanka’s move to turn fully organic agriculture country

• Stringent measures: Including halt to importing chemical fertilizers and no additional agro-chemicals were to be released in the market.
• State compensation offered: For any yield loss. 

Issues associated with Sri Lanka’s move to turn fully organic agriculture country

• No solid scientific information: Taken half-baked advice from some opportunists who regularly state in public that only organic and traditional agriculture is safe to the environment and human beings.
• No clear action plan: Government thought that all plant nutrients could be organically produced in the country by October 2021.
• No back-up base: Sri Lanka short of the required quantities of organic fertilizers.
• Plan to import organic fertilizer hit feasibility hurdle on demands of high standards.
• Farmer crisis: Protest started on demand for fertilizers to start farming.
• Emergency set-back measure: Initiated import of nano-urea (Not fully organic) from India.
• Efficacy of this fertilizer is questionable and there is information gap on long term impacts on health and environment.
• Fall in cultivation: Even over a month after the season started, only about 25-40% of farmers have started paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka.
• Staggering yield loss: Research shows, yield reduction in organic agricultural systems could be 19-25%.
• Food crisis: Failure to address the issues will push Sri Lanka to import food from other countries — food that is produced using agro-chemicals.

Conclusion: The ill-advised policy of banning agro-chemicals, which was based on inadequate scientific evidence and false belief, hit the Sri Lankan agriculture and plantation crop sectors like a cyclone.

==========================================================================================