Rhetoric won’t grow food

When the leaders of the government say farmers’ protests against the shortage of fertilizer were not spontaneous but engineered by the Opposition parties, especially the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), do they really mean it?   

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during a visit to an Organic Fertilizer Processing Centre at Udubaddawa in Kuliyapitiya on October 23 said that some sections of the society provoked the farmers and now they are demanding chemical fertilizers. He made a lengthy explanation about the advantage of using organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer, recalling how eco-friendly the farming was done some fifty years ago. He seemed to really believe that there is nothing for the farmers to complain about.  

Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage has been accusing the Opposition parties for the farmers’ demonstrations from the day the first of them was held a few weeks ago. He even went on to say that a certain leader of a farmer organisation was being paid by the chemical fertilizer companies for organising demonstrations. The President was also of the same view. He said “Some people are against the banning of chemical fertilizers. They are spending money to stop this effort.”  

If they really mean it, the situation is very serious rather than being pathetic, as they are clueless about the situation including the imminent food crisis in the country. There is a grave situation on the ground and if it is not realised by the head of the State and the minister in charge of the matter at hand, the problem is unlikely to be addressed and the country is going to face the repercussions in the coming months. 

 
The farmers’ demonstrations are being held in rural areas where farming is taking place. They were the areas where the people voted - en-mass in some places - for Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the 2019 Presidential Election and for the same party at the Parliamentary Election held in August last year. The possibility of the majority of them voting for the SLPP cannot still be ruled out if an election is held in the coming months. Unless there is a shortage of fertilizer in the country there is nothing that could identify them with the SJB or the JVP. Therefore, it is absurd to infer – leave alone concluding – that the farmers’ demonstrations are stage-managed.  

The fertilizer issue cropped up during the last Yala season. The decision to ban chemical fertilizer and other agrochemicals such as insecticides, pesticides and weedicides was taken in April this year. During a meeting held with the heads of state corporations and statutory boards at the President’s House on April 22 the President while explaining the ill-effects of chemical fertilizer said that measures will be taken to ensure that only organic fertilizer would be used in the agriculture sector in the country in the future.  

“The usage of chemical fertilizers leads to a better harvest. However, the negative consequences caused on human lives through pollution of lakes, canals and groundwater due to the chemical fertilizers outweigh the profit,” he said adding that the health sector has pointed out that the effects of chemical fertilizers have led to a number of non-communicable diseases, including kidney diseases. While highlighting that the annual sum of USD 400 million spent on fertilizer imports could be used to uplift the lives of the people, the President said that organic fertilizer will be provided in lieu of the concessionary fertilizer package for farmers.  
Despite politicians and experts having contested some of the ill-effects of agrochemicals, especially the claim about kidney diseases, farmers do not have any issue with President’s arguments, except for his pledge to provide organic fertilizer.  

The gazette banning the import of chemical fertilizer and agrochemicals was issued on May 6 and the Agriculture Minister very confidently promised to provide locally produced fertilizer for the Maha Season which normally begins in early October. He stressed that the government would import organic fertilizer if the local production failed. The ban, in fact, not only affected the cultivation of Maha Season but also some farmers’ Yala Season cultivation as well, making the ban a hot topic among farmers as well as agricultural experts and thereby among the media and the political circles.  

In spite of pledges, no action was taken to locally produce organic fertilizer on a large scale since, nor was the government able to import it before the beginning of the Maha Season. It was only last month samples of Chinese organic fertilizer were tested in local labs where they were rejected, after two tests. Then the authorities turned to India – the regional archrival of China - for liquid fertilizer and a part of the order was brought in. In the meantime, they also imported a consignment of fertilizer for paddy cultivation, claiming it was organic, but farmers said to have identified it by experience to be what they call “Rathu Keta” or “Bandi Pohora” a kind of chemical fertilizer used during the halfway growth of the paddy plant.  

Now the Chinese company of which the samples were rejected by the local labs is said to be exerting undue influence through the Chinese Embassy in Colombo, threatening to blacklist the People’s Bank which opened the LC for the consignment. They have suggested to have the samples of their fertilizer tested in an “independent” lab.  

Politicians of various parties were making claims that a Chinese ship carrying the rejected fertilizer was sailing towards Sri Lanka, despite the rejection. Agriculture Minister during a media briefing on Wednesday said that he would neither allow the ship carrying the consignment to enter the harbour nor to unload the consignment. He also said that only samples of a new consignment would be tested in an independent lab. He is apparently of the opinion that such a test would not undermine the credibility of the local lab. Also, there are allegations that the liquid fertilizer that was imported from India does not contain sufficient nitrogen that needs for the growth of plants.  

The most important matter is that none of these controversies matters to the farmers whose problem is very simple. They do not have fertilizer – chemical or organic -, now that the Maha Season has arrived.  
Politicians of the government always attempt to give an impression that farmers are insisting on chemical fertilizer while the government has provided sufficient organic fertilizer. Even the President harked back to the good old days when there was no chemical fertilizer usage in local agriculture during his speech at Kuliyapitiya last Saturday. “The people of my generation have experienced traditional farming. My parents did farming. Today, when we go to the same paddy field, there are no more earthworms, Kakkutto or Madakari that used to live in the paddy fields. It is not safe to bathe in the canals today as we did in the past. In our area, in the Hambantota District, the water quality of wells has deteriorated” he lamented.   

However, farmers’ problem is not about a choice between chemical and organic fertilizer, rather it is about a choice between cultivation using and without using fertilizer - whether it is chemical or organic.   
The sudden decision in April to ban agro-chemicals seems to have been prompted by the severe foreign exchange crisis that the government has run into after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. Organic farming may be good, but the current efforts to implement it now is chaotic. The attributions of the ban remind us of the sugar shortage in the 1970s when the pro-government doctors delivered sermons on the ill effects of sugar on health.