25 August 2018 12:01 am Views - 2082
President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday launched the Cascaded Tank-Village system in the Dry Zone and the second stage of the Wayamba River irrigation scheme near the Kubukulawa Tank at Polpithigama in the Kurunegala district. The Cascaded Tank-Village system in the Dry Zone has been described by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a globally important agricultural heritage system.
Speaking at the launching ceremony President Sirisena emphasized the vital need for responsible citizens to cooperate with the government and other institutions in the battle against global warming or climate change. He said that at one time Sri Lanka was number 59 in the list of countries worst affected by global warming or climate change. Now we had plunged to number 4 mainly because of the operations of racketeers or organized gangs involved in deforestation, illegal sand mining and similar frauds. The President quoted one of Sri Lanka’s famous kings as saying that planting a tree was more important than building a palace.
Here is some enlightened information from the Green Med info team. It says there are 3 stages people go through when they wake up to the power of food to transform their lives.
The first stage of the health revolution recognizes food as the most powerful way to improve your health. Here, people start eating healthier, buying organic and maybe even exploring farmers markets.
Green Med says the second stage is understanding the power of super foods. In this stage, people start using powerful plants like wheat grass, maca, chia, moringa and matcha. That is where most people stop but the next stage is where things really get interesting.
This third stage is the source of Green Medicine. We bring in powerful herbs that supercharge our health and target our most persistent issues -- stress, mental focus, hormone imbalances, energy levels and even incurable chronic disease. This is the next revolution in plant-based healing and natural health.
Ancient medicine for modern illness is a hard-hitting, transformative documentary series (Greenmedinfo.com) exploring the most powerful herbal medicines known to us. But it is not only “medicine” for sick people to become healthy. It is also medicine that helps healthy people become even stronger and more vital.
During the past four decades in Sri Lanka we have been using excessive amounts of imported agro-chemical fertilisers, weedicides and pesticides. As a result our mother earth has been polluted or poisoned to a great extent, so has our underground water. In addition many traders are known to be using preservatives on grains, vegetables and fruits. Some of these preservatives are known to be toxic, therefore Sri Lanka is in a crisis that with every meal we are eating a little poison and also giving it to our children.
Many experts believe that this is one of the main reasons why more people are falling sick more often. Medical doctors often cannot diagnose the cause of the ailment and experiment with patients. This is happening amid another crisis where medicine which was once a sacred vocation like the priesthood later became a profession and is now a profit-making business especially in the private health sector. That is why multi billion rupee investors are putting their money into building private hospitals which have become one of the biggest profit making businesses.
In 1970 the then finance minister Dr. N.M. Perera in his budget said he saw “the dim light of a distant dawn” where Sri Lanka will grow its own food and most people would have home gardens where they could grow vegetables and fruits without using poisonous chemicals as fertilisers, weedicides or pesticides. But that did not happen and today we see the devastating consequences of importing junk foods or fake foods while using excessive stocks of imported chemical fertilisers, weedicides and pesticides most of which are toxic.
In a TV interview this week Social Welfare and Primary Industries Minister Daya Gamage said that despite widespread urbanisation and the building of hundreds of apartment complexes, there were still thousands of hectares of home gardens where eco friendly, responsible citizens could grow their own non-polluted vegetables and fruits and even medicinal plants. By doing this we hope that many people would go beyond selfishness, self-interest or petty party politics and help in the battle against climate change or global warming.