Viewpoint: Sri Lanka announces plans to ban agrochemical imports on path toward going 100% organic. It didn’t work in Cuba and here’s why it won’t work here
Viewpoint: Sri Lanka announces plans to ban agrochemical imports on path toward going 100% organic. It didn’t work in Cuba and here’s why it won’t work here
Organic farming is a small phenomenon in global agriculture comprising a mere 1.5% of total farmlands of which 66% is pasture. The world moved away from organic farming towards conventional (chemical) farming from the mid-19th century as the former could not support the rapidly growing global population then.
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The truth is that the government is in a financial crisis for the debt to GDP ratio that stood at 94% in 2019, and was expected to rise to 110% in 2020. It is projected to grow in the succeeding years, ending at 120% by 2023. The decision to ban agrochemicals and move to organics, saving fertilizer costs and subsidies, is obviously because of this economic crunch!
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Several studies have shown that the world population supportable without synthetic fertilizer is only just over 50% of the total.
The President should have at least considered a five-year phased out programme, to move away gradually from conventional agriculture, training farmers in organic farming technologies, not that it will succeed!
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