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The ban was imposed through an extraordinary gazette notification following the Cabinet endorsement of the plan under the theme of “Creating a Green Socio-economy with Sustainable Solutions for Climate Change”. Overnight, millions of farmers were forced to go organic which proved to be disastrous, just as Sri Lankan scientists and agriculture experts had warned.
The blinkered organic rollout ironically accelerated an economic crisis, forcing half a million people back into poverty and lost Sri Lanka its food security. Whilst synthetic fertilisers and pesticides cause a host of environmental and public health problems, which is what we are told inspired the ban. Their use has to be weighted against the consequences brought to bear by crop yield is: hunger, decreased export income, increased deforestation, and if banned outright, as Sri Lanka has shown, political crisis. Synthetic fertilisers and pesticides do what they are designed to do, allowing farmers to grow more food on less land which is critical for small developing countries like Sri Lanka that rely on agriculture for both sustenance and export income. As Sri Lanka gets richer, it will be more able to implement stronger environmental regulations and practices without sacrificing economic growth. Environmental and public health will be prioritized without millions going hungry, but the current crisis – made worse by the forced organic transition – has made that day further away.
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The policy was applied overnight, yet Vandana Shiva, [Indian philosopher who helped oversee the abrupt transition] months later would confidently but incorrectly state that it would be gradually phased in over a 10 year period. This ignorance of the situation and the struggle of the Sri Lankan people shows a blatant lack of interest from Vandana, who since the ban was overturned had been more concerned with the damage to her own reputation than the plight of the Sri Lankan people. This is because Vandana is to the organic industry what Ronald Macdonald is to fast food – a brand mascot. She is as synthetic as the fertilisers and pesticides she helped get banned with every posture, every expression, every word strategically choreographed to meet the demands of a market needing a conduit for their hatred, outrage, and ignorance. … [A] Sri Lanka has shown the world when Vandana pushes the same elite western marketing material to countries whose economies are still based largely on agriculture, we see the true dark side of organic farming.
Myles Power is a chemist from the North East of England, operates the Youtube channel powerm1985, and is a founding member of the podcast The League of Nerds.
