{"id":118352,"date":"2021-09-20T16:14:09","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118352"},"modified":"2021-09-20T16:14:09","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:14:09","slug":"economic-crisis-in-sri-lanka-shows-organic-farming-doesnt-happen-overnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/20\/economic-crisis-in-sri-lanka-shows-organic-farming-doesnt-happen-overnight\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic crisis in Sri Lanka shows organic farming doesn\u2019t happen overnight"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Clarisa Diaz<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0Sarah Todd<\/a> Courtesy Quartz\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In pursuit of becoming the world\u2019s first 100% organic food producer, Sri Lanka now finds itself in an economic crisis<\/a> exacerbated by the pandemic<\/a>, inflation, and hoarding of essential food items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, the country enacted a sweeping, immediate ban of chemical fertilizers imports along with other imports like palm oil\u2060<\/a>. The fertilizer ban, part of the government\u2019s efforts to address its foreign exchange crisis<\/a>, was imposed on farmers with no knowledge of how to transition to organic farming. Switching to organic farming is not an overnight process, but takes at least two years<\/a> to complete in order to rebuild the soil and reach a point where it can produce comparable crop yields. Almost two-thirds of farmers surveyed<\/a> in Sri Lanka said they were supportive of the organic vision, but felt it would require more than a year for them to make the transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan farmers expect tea crop failures<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The new rule is having far-reaching consequences for the Sri Lankan economy<\/a>. Sri Lanka\u2019s biggest export<\/a> is tea, and 89% of its tea and rubber plantations<\/a> relied on chemical fertilizers. Tea plantation owners are now predicting their crops could fail as soon as October<\/a>. Export prices on tea from Sri Lanka have been falling since 2017, and shortages would further threaten the island-state\u2019s economy. The country\u2019s Tea Factory Owners Association also predicts<\/a> that tea crop failures would prompt widespread unemployment among the more than 3 million people who pick tea leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food shortages in Sri Lanka<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan farmers predict that their rice harvests will suffer in the wake of the switch, potentially compounding the country\u2019s current struggles with food supplies. The Sri Lankan government already announced in early September<\/a> plans to combat food shortages by setting price controls on staples like rice and impose new laws aimed to curb hoarding. The shortages were a result of import restrictions the government enacted because it was running out of foreign exchange reserves<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, Sri Lanka\u2019s reserves of foreign currency dropped from $4 billion to $2.8 billion\u2014$1 billion of which was used to make payments on its debt. Medical supplies as well as staple foods are now in short supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s lesson in organic farming<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s current situation is a reminder of just how costly the transition to organic farming<\/a> can be. That\u2019s not to say organic farming is a bad idea. On an environmental level, it\u2019s linked<\/a> with better soil quality, greater biodiversity, and uses less energy than conventional crops. Research suggests organic farming is better for humans, too: One meta-analysis<\/a> of 343 peer-reviewed studies, published in 2014, found that organic crops have significantly more antioxidants and fewer pesticide residues compared to conventional crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But because organic crops often yield less sellable food<\/a> (at least at first<\/a>) shifts have to be carefully planned and managed\u2014particularly at a national scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article has been clarified to note that Sri Lanka\u2019s ban on chemical fertilizers was part of its broader efforts to reduce imports amidst its foreign exchange crisis.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Clarisa Diaz\u00a0&\u00a0Sarah Todd Courtesy Quartz\u00a0 In pursuit of becoming the world\u2019s first 100% organic food producer, Sri Lanka now finds itself in an economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, inflation, and hoarding of essential food items. In April, the country enacted a sweeping, immediate ban of chemical fertilizers imports along with other imports like palm oil\u2060. The fertilizer ban, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,176,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-chemical-fertilizer-ban","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}