A disaster from going green
- Peter Lorenzi
- Mar 1, 2023
- 2 min read
They buried the lead: Some critics trace Sri Lanka's unfolding food catastrophe to former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's decision in April, 2021, to ban chemical fertilisers overnight, part of a drive to make the country's produce more organic.
KILINOCHCHI/COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Nallathambi Mahendran walked through his four acres of emerald green paddy fields in northern Sri Lanka's Kilinochchi district, indicating the height the plants should have reached by now. They were several feet short.
The standing paddy crop across most of this major rice growing belt is stunted for the second successive season because of the lack of fertiliser, according to farmers, a union leader and local government officials.
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'DYING EVERY DAY'
Resulting shortages led to an outburst of public anger against the government and once-powerful president, and sometimes violent mass protests eventually forced Rajapaksa to flee the country and quit the presidency.
In Kilinochchi, where the Sri Lankan military maintains an outsized presence - a vestige of a decades-long bloody civil war that ended in 2009 - there were no major anti-government demonstrations.
But the impact of the crumbling economy has rippled through the hinterland, leaving some farmers who survived the war that killed an estimated 80,000-100,000 people struggling.
To farm 75 acres of land, Chinnathambi Lankeshwaran said he would typically spend around 70,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($197) per acre and recover about 40 bags of rice from each acre.
A combination of shortages and inflation has led to his expenses more than doubling to 200,000 rupees per acre, which now yield only 18-20 bags per because of the lack of fertiliser and pesticides, Lankeshwaran said.
The rising cost of farm inputs is striking, according to estimates provided by several farmers.
A bag of urea, previously costing 1,500 rupees, is now 40,000 rupees. A litre of Loyant, a popular rice herbicide, goes for more than 10 times its usual price at 100,000 rupees - when available.
The price of an empty sack into which farmers put their harvest has trebled to 160 rupees each, and the thread that they used to tie the sacks is sold for more than five times what it used to be at around 1,200 rupees per kilogram.
The black market rate for diesel is hovering around 1,200 rupees ($3.38) per litre, much higher than the authorised pump price of 430 rupees.
But supplies are scarce, and Lankeshwaran said he has 300 bags of wheat stored at home because traders don't have fuel to pick it up.
"In those days, we feared where the bombs would come from," said the 49-year-old farmer, referring to the civil war that displaced his family of four. "Now, we are dying every day."
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