The President’s holistic decision on the banning of chemical fertiliser?
Posted on October 19th, 2021

Chandre dharma-wardana

In spite of all this information and good advise from all the leading scientists of Sri Lanka (see recent articles in the Island by Dr. M. Dhanapala, Prof. Costa, Dr. Waidyanatha, Prof. Marmbe and many others), we have Ranjith Soysa writing the following:

The President’s holistic decision on the banning of chemical fertiliser is, indeed, a step in the right direction, which will bring expected results in the improvement in soil and water quality and the general health of the masses.

What are the expected results? Where have such results been demonstrated”.

1. This is sadly, the continued failure to understand that composting and producing “Organic Fertilizer” will lead to the production of noxious green house gases like methane and CO2 in large quantities that will further add to the runaway global warming that is already occurring.

Mr Ranjith Soysa living in the precincts of the great barrier reef may know that a tiny increase in ocean temperature will wipe out the corals and most of the fish.

Also, the effluent and rain run off  that results when 100 tonnes/acre of organic fertilizer is added to get the same effect as 20 kg/acre of mineral fertilizer is enormous and leads to removal of oxygen from the aquatic ecosystem (rivers and streams) and its asphyxiation.

Legislation has been introduced in, e.g., Massachusetts to severely control organic farms because of this, even though organic farming is less than 2% of normal farming in US states.

Unfortunately, Venerable Ratana’s newest acolyte, namely President Gotabhaya has rushed into all this with the enthusiasm of a neophyte who wants be “the first in the world to convert the country to 100% organic”.

This is achievable, but at the cost of creating famine and causing rural riots that he may have to put down with his beloved military.

That the population has to be cut down by at least half  was well known in the research literature. When Dr. Adrian Mueller of the Swiss institute for organic agriculture discussed going 100% organic in a research article in Nature in 2018, he admitted that it will require a halving the population who will all have to be forced into being vegetarian, as pointed out very clearly when I wrote a reply to him.

http://dh-web.org/place.names/posts/CD-Mueller-OrganicL.pdf

The claim that inorganic fertilizer will improve the general health of the masses is the sort of nonsense that is good for Dr. Padeniya and Ven. Ratana.

Ranjit Soyza also says: However, such a crucial decision was not followed professionally to ascertain the availability of other nutrients, and enough supply of compost fertilizer to apply in the following growing season. The unscientific method of managing the subject gave opportunities to many to engage in public agitation against this holistic decision”

So Ranjith Soysa thinks that organic fertilizers are the way to go, but that its introduction has been mismanaged.

This is another popular myth.

Even if organic fertilizer production and the approach to organic farming had been properly managed, it will STILL LEAVE THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE STARVING.

I know that Mr. Ranjith  Soysa who has done good work in the fight against terrorism in Sri Lanka, and worked hard for the good of Sri Lanka, does not genuinely wish to support the creation of a man-made famine in Sri Lanka.

But I believe he (and indeed many others) had been strongly misled by the likes of Dr. Nalin de Silva and other ideologues in these matters.

We should remember that Gunadasa Amarasekera too was mislead to such an extent that he wrote a glowing preface to Channa Jayasumana’s  utterly unscientific and scandalous book “Waku Gadu Hatana“.

One Response to “The President’s holistic decision on the banning of chemical fertiliser?”

  1. Ratanapala Says:

    I just wonder how tea, rubber and coconut plantations and rice cultivation were managed before the advent of the large scale use of chemical fertilizers, not many decades ago? I guess one could say that yields increased. Then the recent findings are that increasingly larger and larger amounts of chemical fertilizer as well as weedicides and herbices are now required to keep up the same rates of production.

    Some clarity in this direction would be useful!

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