In April 2021, Sri Lanka decided to ban the importation of chemical fertilizers, because pressure from green folks convinced them to attempt to become “organic.”
By the time this ban was reversed in November, they had lost 40-50% of their rice crop, a Sri Lanki staple, and substantial impact on others.
Now with massive inflation, the shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, both grains and fertilizers, Sri Lanka is running out of foreign reserves to pay for these more expensive goods. 6 million people are in danger of being short of food. Power cuts have lasted longer and lines at the (propane) refill station have become long.
Public sector employees are being given time off to grow their own food. Families are reverting to wood stoves and food that does not require as much preparation.
Sri Lanka has lost any advances they have made in the last 100 years.
The charity Save the Children estimates that 12% of the poorest households are taking “crisis level” steps to survive the food shortage and the pending economic collapse.
Clearly, Sri Lanka has made a whole series of mistakes. But convincing them to ban chemical fertilizers was a con they didn’t deserve.
Fertilizer generally increases crop production by 30-40%. In Sri Lanka, apparently a bit higher. Yes, it may be that chemical fertilizers have a small effect on the environment. But the impact is the subject of dueling research, and production per acre in the agricultural world has never been higher.
Could Sri Lanka afford to lose almost half of their production for even a season, just to meet an environmental standard that means very little and whose effects are controversial at best?
Perhaps they could have made up the difference by planting more and importing more, if the rest of the world hadn’t gone haywire.
As it is, millions are at risk, and hundreds of thousands could die from starvation.
But environmentalists don’t care. I guess it doesn’t matter. They believe the earth’s population is too high anyway, have to start somewhere. Heartless bastards.
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Farmers pay price of Sri Lanka govt’s ban on chemical fertilisers | Exclusive