A victim of the Green New Deal.
Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic.
The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis/
Sri Lanka went woke and now it’s gone broke with enough gasoline to last “for a single day.”
The Indian Ocean island nation’s government committed the country to 100% organic farming in 2021.
Can you guess what happened in between banning agrochemicals and 200 rioting Sri Lankans being shot dead in the streets by security forces?
This:
Within six months of the ban, rice production in the country—a once very sufficient industry—dropped 20 percent, forcing Sri Lanka to import $450 million of rice to meet supply needs and surging rice prices rose nearly 50 percent.
Now, Sri Lanka will pay farmers across the country 40,000 million rupees ($200 million) to compensate for their barren harvests and crop failures. In addition to the funding, the Sri Lankan government will pay $149 million in price subsidies to rice farmers impacted by the loss.
Formerly self-sufficient, taxpaying farmers were forced on the government dole — by the government.
Helping Sri Lanka to go green (1921)
While Sri Lanka has made significant progress in the electricity sector over the last decades – it boosted national electrification from 29% in 1990 to more than 99.58% in 2018 – the sector struggles to meet the growing demand for an affordable and reliable electricity supply, while being heavily dependent on imported energy supplies. In particular, the renewable energy sector is yet to scale up to support Sri Lanka’s Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% in the energy sector.
https://www.elanka.com.au/helping-sri-lanka-to-go-green/
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