{"id":99877,"date":"2020-03-12T17:41:36","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T00:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99877"},"modified":"2020-03-12T17:41:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T00:41:36","slug":"hiru-govi-sangarmaya-another-tamasha-to-deceive-the-masses-by-those-already-deceived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/12\/hiru-govi-sangarmaya-another-tamasha-to-deceive-the-masses-by-those-already-deceived\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiru Govi Sangarmaya \u2013 Another Tamasha to deceive the masses by those already deceived?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chandre Dharmawardana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The event, Hiru Govi Sangraamaya -Thun Helayei Ranketh Udhaanaya\u201d may be visited at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Own9TRzKUYw). A part of the title means Hiru farmer’s battle\u201d. But what does Uddaana\u201d mean? In Sanskrit, Uddaana implies the act of binding, fastening together\u201d, while it also denotes the entry of the sun into a zodiacal sign. In Sinhalese\u00a0 Uddaana Kaavya\u201d, refers to lyric poetry, while in Buddhist literature Udaana\u201d refers to a type of joy\u201d. Perhaps the organizers used words that they thought may imply re-invigoration while ignoring the usage in Sinhala and in mother languages.

A writer who greatly admired the event says that it is to encourage the younger generation to take up to traditional paddy cultivation\u201d,\u00a0 and become a net exporter of higher quality organic rice\u201d.\u00a0 The\u00a0 U-tube rendition claims that in the old days our vegetables, rice, and our own nishpaadhana\u201d covered all our needs. One speaker becomes orgasmic about the smell of mud. The speakers preach an inward-looking, retrograde pastoral philosophy with no scientific or intellectual content.

This inward-looking approach wants the young villager to be satisfied with what the village can produce (its own nispaadhana\u201d). However,\u00a0 the villager is expected to produce organic rice\u201d for the elites who also need their French wines, German-made BMWs, American made Apple I-pads and Italian marble for their homes! The back-to-the traditional life\u201d is only an exhortation for the poor, while the\u00a0 Elites have a very different set of aspirations with a hidden two-tier model of society that I have exposed before (https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/moving-from-conventional-farming-to-organic-farming-jumping-from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire\/).

There is not one word said about the actual problems of the farmer!
Why should the youth take up to farming when farmers commit suicide in droves?\u00a0 The lack of means of marketing, lack of pre-market storage, the need to constantly improve seeds, fight new pathogens, reduce erosion, retain soil fertility, need for more land and water, climate change, etc., are never mentioned. Why grow more paddy if 30-50% of the produce rots? \u00a0

\u00a0A one-sided tale is evoked (or made up)\u00a0 using nostalgic memories of a previous era. The tamasha is a deja vu\u201d with the same type of politicians that plague the farmers in attendance. Surveying the historical aspect by a few well-known scholars like Dr. J. B. Disanayake is welcome. But the stark reality that transcends history to defeat the farmer\u00a0 MUST also be faced.
\u00a0
Farming families toiled from the crack of dawn to the end of the day to produce food for his masters, monks and themselves. In the night, farmers sat in the vaadiya\u201d\u00a0 to oust pests, pigs and elephants. They had no time for education or leisure. Today too, the farmer toils for the loan sharks and the powerful politicians who control the market and finally commit suicide.

The marvelous hydraulic civilization that began in the Mahatheetha (Mannar) rice bowl of King Bhatiya, abandoned it for Anuradhapura, and then again for\u00a0 Poron-nuwara (Polonnaruwa). The irrigation tank was both the strength and the Achilles heel of those civilizations when faced with invaders. Besides invaders, the loss of N, P, K from the soil forced the farming regions to move.\u00a0 \u00a0

The food situation in ancient times was precarious, in spite of occasional exports of rice. Many nations,\u00a0 e.g., Egypt,\u00a0 Lanka and Panjab claimed themselves to be the granary of the east\u201d.\u00a0 However, historians like Professor Siriweera and others have discussed the actual precarious food situation that prevailed ( http:\/\/dh-web.org\/place.names\/posts\/small-irrigation-tanks.pdf<\/a>).
\u00a0One admirer of the event described\u00a0 traditional paddy farming\u201d as follows:
The only period that the paddy land is left fallow is for about a month following the harvesting. During that month the cut stumps of the paddy bushes are first allowed to dry and then flooded over weeks prior to the intended muddying using water buffaloes. This practice accelerates the decay of the Ipanella thereby creating its own natural compost containing N, P, K and other micronutrients within the liyadde\u201d. The traditional farmer then prepares the wet soil ready for the spread of paddy seedlings using mamoties and wooden hoes as shown in that video… Then he hands spreads Geri katu pohora (powdered\/crushed Cattle bones), mixed with crushed gendagam (Sulphur). By then the next seedling period of either the Yala or the Maha season is commenced.\u201d.

Neither bone meal (Geri Katu\u201d) nor Sulphur was used by the ancient farmers in Sri Lanka where cattle were not killed. Past edicts and stone inscriptions testify to the protection given,\u00a0 not only to cows but to other animals as well.\u00a0 With the need to feed\u00a0 Indian workers,\u00a0 the British restored tanks and rice cultivation. Ferguson’s directory, available from the 1830s, and archived records of imports show how 19th-century European agriculture based on bone-meal fertilizers, and pest control based on sulphur and arsenic were introduced to Sri Lanka. So, the attempt to revert to traditional farming\u201d proposed by these Ran-keth speakers is nothing but reverting to 19th century British practices.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0

The ancient civilizations were in the dry zone. The dense forest of the wet zone, impenetrable without steel tools remained intact. The ancient dry zone farmer did not use composting or geri-katu\u201d.\u00a0 Instead, he moved his farm\u00a0 from one Hena ( Chena\u201d) to another, letting the parana-kumbura\u201d and parana-hena\u201d fallow for a period and burn the growth to yield some minerals. Today there is no land for such slash-and-burn methods.

No one should believe that the ipanel\u201d (stumps of paddy bushes) provide the needed micro-nutrients to the soil to any extent. Also, too much recycling of ipanel\u201d,\u00a0 straw and husk via composting is bad as plants accumulate metal toxins during growth.\u00a0 The straw may contain some 200 times more cadmium, arsenic or lead than found naturally in the soil. Putting it back to the soil should be done with caution.

The 19th-century practice of using sulphur, arsenic or red lead as pesticides is dangerous to human and environmental health. Organic-food activists militated against glyphosate (used in extreme dilution for a few days of the year by paddy farmers) but what about the sulphur of the traditionalist?\u00a0 Although not significantly present in the soil, water, or blood of farmers affected by kidney disease\u00a0 (See WHO study, 2014)\u00a0\u00a0 the herbicide was banned!\u00a0 Activists like Venerable Ratana,\u00a0 Ms. Senanayake, and others championed for a so-called Toxin-free nation\u201d.\u00a0 Ms. Senanayake is allegedly engaged in marketing organic rice via\u00a0 Hela saviya\u201d or Hela suvaya\u201d. Their agents attempted to sell their rice in Ontario, after claiming that Lankan rice contains arsenic, cadmium and such toxins\u00a0 unlike their own produce. Chemical analysis of the standard\u00a0 Lankan rice does NOT show higher levels of cadmium or arsenic when compared with other rice.\u00a0 Standard Lankan rice has a high amount of zinc. Zinc\u00a0 mitigates any bad effects, if any, from the traces of cadmium found in the rice. Sri Lankan rice is quite safe to eat, contrary to the propaganda of the organic-rice\u201d bandwagon. \u00a0

The need of the hour is not increasing the land under paddy, but returning the land back to forests, or to natural wetlands. The populations of pollinating insects, wild bees, etc. have dwindled drastically \u2013 a global phenomenon caused by human encroachment of wilderness. The farmed area can be REDUCED\u00a0 and yet the paddy harvest can be increased by saving the 30-40% destroyed by weevils etc., and by using modern technology, no-till agriculture etc (i.e, no mud,\u00a0 no erosion, less labor, and less water). The ultimate is to beyond the methods of the green revolution (see .https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/02\/26\/beyond-the-green-revolution-how-humanity-needs-cutting-edge-technology-to-save-itself).\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0

In rural homes, the grain is stored in the Duma\u201d, a shelf above the wood-burning kitchen fire.\u00a0 Dum\u201d (smoke)\u00a0 keeps the grain relatively safe from humidity, weevils, insects, etc. The kitchen smoke pervades the interior. Additionally, a smoke pan (Dum Kabala\u201d) is used against mosquitoes. Rice husk\u00a0 (Dahaiyya\u201d) is often used for this purpose.\u00a0 The resulting heightened levels of nitric oxides, sulphurous fumes, acrolein like substances,\u00a0 sub-micron particulate dust, are often a thousand times higher than those gazetted in August 2008 (for PM10 and PM2.5).\u00a0 The rice husk may contain 200 times the cadmium present naturally in the soil. When it is burnt, such metal toxins are released into the air.\u00a0 Toxins are efficiently absorbed by the lungs, unlike from the gut. These rural homes have more particulate dust and noxious chemicals than busy Colombo streets (see Samarakkody et al. 2007, and Lankathilka et al. 2000).\u00a0\u00a0 Allergies, asthmas\u00a0 (peenasa\u201d and aeduma\u201d)\u00a0 and weakened immune systems are the result.

The danger of air pollution is ignored by our politicians who invest in coal, LNG and other fossil fuels.\u00a0 Those who envisage the setting up of vast smokestacks (Dum madu) to store paddy are in the same league as those who believe in\u00a0 Dandu Monedra Flying machines\u201d of yore.

The urban intellectuals want the youth to go back to the traditional villager with its tank and temple to produce the organic food for them, but the villager wants to escape manual labour and move to a city! The tank-temple-village model\u201d is inapplicable to a 22 million population given the need to stop further habitat encroachment.\u00a0 \u00a0

The speakers at the Hiru event make no mention of the yeoman contribution of Lankan scientists who created new, high-yielding, fast-growing hybrids from traditional seeds. They averted famines in Lanka with its post-WWII demographic bulge.\u00a0 Ranketh Udaanaya, if successful,\u00a0\u00a0 may produce a miserable 1-1.5 metric tonnes of organic\u201d\u00a0 rice per hectare for the elite, and hunger for the masses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[The author was instrumental in initiating university courses in food science and in introducing course units on environmental studies during his tenure as a professor of chemistry, and President of the Vidyodaya campus -i.e., Sri Jayawardena Pura\u00a0 university -in the mid-1970s.] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chandre Dharmawardana The event, Hiru Govi Sangraamaya -Thun Helayei Ranketh Udhaanaya\u201d may be visited at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Own9TRzKUYw). A part of the title means Hiru farmer’s battle\u201d. But what does Uddaana\u201d mean? In Sanskrit, Uddaana implies the act of binding, fastening together\u201d, while it also denotes the entry of the sun into a zodiacal sign. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99877","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=99877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}