Columns

WALKING THE TIGHT ROPE OF HOPE, TORN BETWEEN SOWING AND NOT REAPING: Lankan farmers stage protest in paddy fields over Government’s overnight ban on chemical fertiliser

If expectations had been raised to fever pitch among farmers that Basil Rajapaksa’s return to Lanka last month to assume the nation’s financial reins would see reversed a presidential ban on chemical fertiliser, they were swiftly flayed when the Government’s media division announced two weeks ago that the new Minister of Finance had no intention whatsoever to countermand his brother’s decision.

The media statement, issued the day after he was sworn in as Finance Minister, dispelled hope fired by social media conjecture that there will be a change of heart following Basil’s advent. It said, “the ban on imports of chemical fertiliser and pesticides will not be reversed. There is no truth in the news circulated across certain websites and social media networks that the new Minister of Finance, Basil Rajapaksha, has reversed the decision taken by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban the import of chemical fertiliser and pesticide with the objective of building a green socio-economy in Sri Lanka. Whatever the circumstances may be, the Government does not contemplate reversing the decision to convert to organic agriculture sans chemical fertiliser and pesticide.”

This reaffirmed President Gotabaya’s commitment to transform the country’s farming method by banning overnight the import of high yielding chemical fertiliser leaving agriculturists with no option but to depend on the lower-yielding organic fertiliser — if it were available.

Three months ago, the President declared his intention of making Lanka the world’s first country to go completely organic. At a discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat on April 29, he said: “We need to raise public awareness of the ban on import of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides and their use. The people have a right to consume safe food. The National Policy Framework “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” also promised to accelerate the production of organic fertilisers in the next decade so that only organic fertiliser will be used in the agricultural field of Sri Lanka.”

The President also observed how Sri Lanka would be saving nearly US$             400 million by this move this year alone and vowed that, no matter who opposed it, he would remain steadfast to his decision.

Banning the use of chemicals in agriculture has long been the utopian dream of world environmentalists who have enlightened governments and the emerging generation of the hazardous nature of toxins in soil and their long-term consequences. But though almost all agree to the prophesied disaster that await the soil and land, the stampede to return to agriculture’s roots of using nothing more than nature’s compost has remained reined by the stark prospect of a greater evil ensuing in its wake: the dismal spectre of worldwide famine due to worldwide food shortages.

It is a similar scenario depicted by the 18th century economist Malthus, labelled as the ‘Prophet of Doom’, in his Essay on the Principle of Population, where he warned that population multiplies geometrically and food arithmetically.  Therefore, he held, that eventually in the future there would come a day when there would be a global food shortage to feed the rising numbers of the human race for “the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”

Only the industrial revolution which led to the introduction of machinery and modern day farming methods and the use of chemical fertiliser to spur crop production prevented his gloomy outlook for humanity from coming to pass. But has mankind that continued to spawn without pause in greater numbers to consume with gluttony unrestrained, as Malthus had foreseen it would when he said “population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase,” only bought itself time to delay the onset of  ordained doom?

But the power to increase food production through chemical means to feed an ever increasing population whose avarice outsoars abundance and is infinite, leaves in its trail enormous environmental damage to the land and entails adverse consequences to human health. All agree the dependence on chemicals fertilisers to boost crop harvests must be reversed. But can it be done overnight, whisked out with presidential wand, however admirable, without provoking an immediate crisis, far worse in the short time?

Only one country had taken the bold, brave step to venture forth into unfurrowed territory. Bhutan. In 2013, the small Himalayan mountain kingdom, roughly half the size of Lanka but with a population less than 800,000, announced its ambitious plan to become the world’s first organic farming country. But the Bhutan Government did not intend to realise this target overnight in haste, of course, but set its sights on the year 2020 to achieve 100 per cent ‘green’ status. But even this planned seven-year period hasn’t sufficed to turn ambition’s vision into reality.

Last year as the 2020 deadline passed, the kingdom’s Daily Bhutan reported the many reasons the Government’s phased out plan to become wholly organic had not materialised. The report said that a part of the 100 percent organic policy rationale was to promote Bhutan as an organic brand internationally but that on a pragmatic level, achieving the target proved impractical, especially given the significant challenges involved.

For Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture, it had been a challenge to meet national food self-sufficiency while keeping the agriculture systems largely organic, with the country importing 45 to 50 percent of its domestic rice requirement from India and other countries. A study in 2017 found that Bhutan’s organic crop yields on average to be 24 percent lower than conventional yields. Even the use of pesticides has been increasing with an average annual growth rate of 11.8 percent.

And at the end of the eight year plan, the country had only achieved about 10 percent of organic agriculture production, along with just about 545 hectares of crop land (less than 1 percent of its total arable land) being certified organic. But undaunted the Bhutan Government, ever guided by its King’s vision to measure everything by its contribution to ‘gross national happiness,’ has now shifted its 2020 goal post  to 2035, giving the nation another 15 years to gradually phase out chemical fertiliser from its agricultural process.

The Bhutan foray into unchartered terrain gripped by a burning desire to be totally rid of toxins has shown its unmapped path is riddled with potholes and hidden snares. Luckily for Bhutan, it would have had the goodwill of its neighbours, India and others, backed, perhaps, with the dollar reserves necessary, to provide half of its staple diet to tide over its rice  shortage.

What of Lanka? Pressed as she is to follow in Bhutan’s pioneering steps, is she deterred by Bhutan’s experience and failure to deliver 100% organic farming within seven years? On the contrary, she is resolute in her decision to do it overnight.

Ever since the presidential decree was made three months ago, announcing Lanka’s total renunciation of chemical fertiliser, albeit involuntarily, from thenceforth, the instant paradigm shift in the agricultural field has raised mounting alarm and horror among the nation’s farmers who know their land and crop, and know full well how adversely the soil and seed will respond, starved of its chemical cocktail of vital nutrients.

And they behold, helpless with dread, the dim prospect of their toil and labour, which had long filled the rice bowls of the land, squandered reckless; and their livelihoods threatened with certain doom, with their once fertile fields given the ‘cold turkey’ treatment and denied overnight the prime chemical fix to which, through long usage, it had got addicted and indispensably requires to effectively fruit the earth’s bounty.

Their anguished cries resound throughout the land but yet to no avail despite experts in many fields joining their wailing chorus.

The experts point out that organic fertilisers fail to produce high yields due to its low nutrient content.

In an article published in the Sunday Times in May this year following the presidential ban, the writer Wicky Wickramatunge held that a kilogram of urea contains 460 grams of nitrogen whereas a kg of compost contains 30 grams of nitrogen unless the manufacturer “adds” urea solution during the manufacturing process.

The farmer, the article maintained, has to add 15 times more manure to obtain the same quantity of nitrogen that is given by urea. Moreover, only 3 percent of the nitrogen applied by way of compost is readily available to the plant. The balance 97 per cent will have to be broken down by soil microorganisms and will be available within 12-18 months. The same scenario prevails with the other major nutrients, phosphorous and potassium.

Reference was made to a paper titled ‘Why organic farming is not the way forward’ written in 2019 by Prof. Holger Kirchmann of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. In his paper, he wrote   that yields of organically cropped legumes were 20 percent and non-legumes 40 percent lower than those of conventionally grown crops. Over all crops, the organic yield gap was 35 percent. Based on Swedish statistical data, the condition to compensate for a 35 percent yield gap would mean increasing the arable land by about 50 percent.

Recently, the Sri Lanka Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA) circulated a memorandum titled: ‘The pros and cons of organic farming’. The SAEA’s findings on the subject of paddy reveal that the average yields from paddy can drop by 25 percent if chemical fertilisers are fully replaced by organic fertiliser. This, they say, could reduce the profitability of paddy farming by 33 percent. However, if organic fertiliser is used with the recommended dosage of chemical fertiliser, it would raise the profitability by 16 percent, the SAEA contend.

On tea, the flavour that put the country on the world map, the SAEA notes that a complete ban on chemical fertiliser would result in a productivity drop in Vegetative Propagated Tea by 35 percent. The export volume would suffer a shortfall of 98 million kilos, from 279 to 181 million kg, leading to a revenue loss of Rs. 84 billion.

Former Governor of the Western Province and former Deputy Minister of Agriculture with a doctorate in organic agriculture, Dr. Hemantha Nanayakkara warned that the Government’s short-sighted decision may even lead to famine.

In a recent TV interview with Faraz Shauketaly, he said: “In the 1960s, Dr. Norman Borlaug, who initiated the Green Revolution, started breeding new varieties and hybrids which have a very high responsiveness to agrochemicals, chemical fertilisers, and micro irrigation. The varieties we have at present, be it pumpkin, chilli, capsicum, tomato, or potato, are new, improved varieties, and therefore, they cannot be grown under organic agricultural conditions.’’

He further warned the immediate ban could cause an additional drain of foreign reserve.

Referring to the roars of despair from tea and spice producers complaining that lack of chemical fertiliser would lead to lower production and inferior quality of their produce as they compete in international markets, Dr. Nanayakkara said: ‘’the exportation of tea, rubber, coconut, and other crops such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom, Sri Lanka earns a total of around $ 2,200 million, whereas we spend around $ 400 million for the importation of chemical fertilisers and agrochemicals.”

If that be the case, Lanka would end killing two birds with one stone: hitting the farmers of their livelihoods as fields turn barren in denial and shooting the measly dollar reserves in the Treasury’s coffers out of existence, losing 1800 million to save 400 million.

Though the body of opinion, including that of farmers, seems collectively willing to welcome the gradual transformation to organic fertiliser, they are uniformly lined against the sudden overnight ban.

True, the President’s ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ election manifesto pledged to make Lanka ‘green’. But what it proposed was to gradually phase out the nation’s dependence on chemical fertiliser during a span of ten years. Not to ban it overnight. It held:

“Building up a community of citizens who are healthy and productive, we need to develop the habit of consuming food with no contamination with harmful chemicals. In order to guarantee the people’s right to such safe food, the entire Sri Lankan agriculture will be promoted to use organic fertilisers during the next ten years.”

In an ideal world the sun will shine, the sky will be blue, the grass will be green and the rivers will flow, clear and pure to the awaiting sea’s yawn. But the world ceased to be idyllic since its genesis; and a utopian existence that can be dawned simply by banishing the spell of accumulated evil with a fairy godmother’s wand is the stuff of children’s’ bedtime tales.

Mankind has woken to the 21st century to a torrid world; and finds its shores awash with the debris of abominable sin its ancestors had waged against nature, which the tide of time had brought in its wake to imperil the survival of fragile earth.

But, as the scientific world has concluded and Bhutan has found after her seven-year hands-on experience, alas, no quick fire solutions exist to remedy overnight a perennial manmade problem without plunging the world or a country further into chaos.