The abrupt ban on imports of fertilisers ahead of summer crop sowing plunged Sri Lanka into deep agrarian crisis
Afew days ahead of the beginning of the Yala planting season, Sri Lanka announced a complete ban on imports of chemical fertilizers in April 2021. The farmers were ready with the sowing season as the Monsoon set its course in the island nation for the Yala crops, same as Kharif sowing season in India. This planting season is the mainstay of the Sri Lankan economy, as paddy is the staple food of the island nation. The Sri Lankan government was convinced that the organic farm produce would fetch premium prices in the international market and make Sri Lanka richer in quick time.
The Sri Lankan government took the country into the arms of chaos by embarking on policy adventures with least regards to the scientific inputs. Agriculture is not a domain for casino players to set bets with borrowed foreign money. But the Sri Lankan government was fully policy-blinded, as the Chinese hot money flowed in the pockets of the ruling elites in Colombo, and Beijing pursued its debt-trap policy in India’s neighbourhood. The ban on imports of chemical fertilizers was sudden. It came as a jolt to the farming community. That was despite the agricultural scientists publicly expressing their reservations.
Sri Lanka is essentially a plantation economy. The island nation was self-sufficient in rice production. Agriculture accounted for 8.26 per cent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Sri Lanka in 2020. Sri Lanka takes pride in the Kandyan Home garden System, banking on the traditional agricultural practices, which is said to have helped in protecting biodiversity and also the environment. The Chenna cultivation system works with the rotation of the crops and the agro-forestry has also been a key feature of Sri Lankan agriculture. Such practices which enjoyed popular support for the traditional agricultural practices must have made the Sri Lankan government to take the organic bet in April 2021.
By November, Sri Lanka began realizing that the worst case scenarios projected by the agricultural scientists started proving right. Tea productions, the mainstay of Sri Lanka and the key earner of foreign currency reserves, crashed by over 40 per cent. The productions of the Yala crops took a big hit, crashing by almost 40 per cent. The prices of the foodgrains began soaring. Panic set in, and the government realized that mistakes have been committed. But it was too late in the day when the Sri Lankan government partially lifted the ban on imports of chemical fertilizers.
The foreign currency reserves were already dwindling following the 2019 Easter terror attacks and the subsequent outbreak of the Covid-19, which dried up the remittances sent by the expatriates. The cunning traders began hoarding the foodgrains, and the food inflation just flew into the sky, setting off a chain reaction to stage the collapse of the financial system of Sri Lanka, which eventually defaulted on its over USD 55 billion.
The Galle Face protest began gathering strength about three months back, almost the same time when Russia invaded Ukraine, which plunged the world into a full scale inflation trap. While Russia and Ukraine are granaries of the world, being big wheat producers, the ongoing war triggered the food crisis in many countries. The crude oil prices dried the foreign currency reserves of the importing countries, including Sri Lanka. Time had run out for the Sri Lankan government to do any repair, as the people stood miles in queues to fetch cooking gas, petrol and diesel, rations, and so on. In the end, the April, 2021 decision of the Sri Lankan government to ban import of the chemical fertilizers proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back.
Organic farming is an abiding objective of the progressive farmers. But the fact is also true that a shift to organic farming after decades of chemical fertilizers-based agriculture cannot be abrupt. Incidentally, Sri Lanka and India worked almost at similar times for the Green Revolution in the 1960s. Doubling of the foodgrains production and their subsequent scaling up later were entirely based on the use of chemical fertilizers and better quality seeds. Like India, Sri Lanka too became self-sufficient in most of the foodgrains requirements. There emerged significant comfort levels about food security in Sri Lanka, which may have set up the government there to go for the organic gamble.
It, however, remains a fact among the agricultural scientific community that a shift to organic farming cannot be swift and sudden, for soil needs to be restored to its health first before productions of the grains could match the levels seen during the use of the chemical fertilizers. This tests patience, and requires government support to the farming community, as has been done by the Central government in India. Sikkim is the only organic state in India, but the state government with the support of the Centre put in place a robust support system for the farmers to compensate for the losses of the productions and incentivize them to persist with the use of the organic manures, while at the same time providing a pan-India marketing support system to help the cultivators fetch the premium prices for their produces.
The Indian experiment to promote organic farming has been scientific and gradual. Organic Research and Training Institute hand-holds the farming community in the adoption of organic farming. The Central government through a slew of schemes support the promotion of the use of bio-fertilizers and organic fertilizers through laboratories, while at the same time the Soil Health Cards, taken up by the government on a big scale, have empowered the farmers to make the right choices. As part of the National Programme for Promotion of Organic Products, India exported 59908 MT of produces in the Cereal & Millets category worth USD 76 million in 2020-21. On the other hand India’s export of organic food products rose by 51 per cent USD 1040 million in 2020-21. India is exporting organic food products to 58 countries, while there continues to be robust demand in the global market. The Covid-19 pandemic made no impact on the exports of the Indian organic food producers. That was made possible on account of the end-to-end support system, from cultivation to processing to marketing, with incentives assured by the government for each stakeholder.
Besides, India embarked on scientific ways to reduce the consumption of the chemical fertilizers, with the Soil Health Cards helping the farmers to make informed decisions on right use of urea. Also, the introduction of the neem-coated urea has been a game changer. Additionally, the innovation with the nano-fertilizer has empowered the farmers to make the best and optimum use of the chemical inputs. Incidentally, the ceiling on the production of the neem-coated urea has been enhanced from the earlier 20 per cent to 35 per cent.
The Indian way of promoting organic farming is well-tested and assured by the government, which should act as an exemplar for any country if it decides to make a shift in the farming practices. Restoring the health of the soil is at the core of the efforts of the government to promote organic farming. There cannot be any short-cut. The farmers, the government agencies, and the scientific community have to toil hard for sustainable agriculture, and there cannot be any short-cut to reach the goal.
(The author is Director, Public Policy Research Centre)
