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Green dreams: How going organic helped spark Sri Lanka’s crisis
From growing less rice, to riots, and the Prime Minister’s resignation - turning the country organic became a catalyst for Sri Lanka’s worsening economic and humanitarian crisis.
Published 17 May 2022 5:59pm
Updated 18 May 2022 1:15pm
By Monique Pueblos
Source: SBS
Image: Abishek Devaraj and Medhini Igoor on their organic farm.
Just past Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, behind the doors of what looks like an abandoned industrial estate, is a fruit and vegetable farm run by a local architect and a businessman.
Medhini Igoor, 29, and Abishek Devaraj, 31, are the co-founders of Us On Earth - an urban farm using sustainable farming methods.
The couple started with no agriculture experience and just a bare piece of land. It was hard for them to know where to begin.
“When we started this, we were clueless,” Ms Igoor says. “We didn't know what to do.”
Abishek Devaraj and Medhini Igoor working on their urban farm.
“The first farmer that we got – he was asking us for pesticides – and then we realised how much chemicals go into growing vegetables, and I think that's what kind of scared us.”
The couple’s goal? To sustain themselves on the vegetables they grew. Going organic was never part of the plan.
From sowing seeds, to reaping the harvest, and cooking with their fresh food, the couple fell in love with the entire process of growing their own produce.
We realised how much chemicals go into growing vegetables, and I think that's what kind of scared us.Medhini Igoor
What started out as a small home garden has now grown to a farm just shy of a hectare where the excess harvest is able to be sold to the community at an affordable price.
“Organic is definitely a lifestyle thing for us. It sort of taught us to appreciate slow food, living seasonally, eating locally and stuff like that,” Ms Igoor says.
“You know, at the end of the day, you're eating food to be healthy. Right. And if you're ingesting chemicals then you're just going backwards again.
Daring to dream organic
But the pairs’ positive experience with organic agriculture is not common in a country where farmers have long relied on chemicals to help grow food.
Sri Lanka's president Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the election in 2019 – campaigning on a green vision that included turning the country organic within 10 years.
Then in April 2021, he made a bold decision to ban the importation of artificial fertilisers, pesticides, and weedicides. Just like that, the country became 100 per cent organic overnight.
With Sri Lanka having one of the highest rates of chronic kidney disease in the world, the concerns around chemicals and illness played a significant role in President Rajapaksa’s plan.
But the response was clear. Outrage.
Going organic was an attempt to save lives, the environment and the economy. So, how could something as harmless as organic food lead to violence and unrest?
Since the 1960s, Sri Lanka has subsidised farmers to use synthetic fertiliser, resulting in the doubling of yields for crops such as the staple, rice.
But by 2020, the total cost of fertiliser imports and subsidies was close to $500 million each year.
With fertiliser costs on the rise and a budget hit badly by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was hoped the ban would help cut expenditure and improve foreign exchange, as well as address concerns about the health effects of using chemicals in growing food.
The government had promised to distribute organic alternatives to farmers, but failed to secure enough stock, which meant many crops were sown without any fertiliser at all, with farmers expected to carry on as normal without any training on how to successfully grow crops organically.
A country in crisis
Within the first six months of Sri Lanka turning organic, domestic rice production fell heavily. The ban also devastated the country’s primary export and source of foreign exchange - tea.
It’s not just the lack of fertilisers hurting farmers; a shortage of fuel and rising prices means there are some who are unable to afford or find kerosene or diesel essential for tractors and other agricultural tools.
Farmers in Sri Lanka protest the government's organic farming scheme.
The World Bank estimates half a million people have fallen into poverty as Sri Lanka faces its worst financial crisis since independence.
Though the shift to organic isn’t the only reason fuelling the crisis, it’s contributed to it.
A country once self-sufficient in rice production is now reliant on imports from the likes of Myanmar and China and is in the midst of a major food crisis.
Farmers in general are being offered $250 million in compensation by the Sri Lankan government, while rice farmers who faced losses are also being offered $212 million in subsidies.
Today, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency hangs on by a thread. His brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to resign as prime minister a day after violence saw five people, including a ruling party member of parliament, killed as violent protests continue.
Farmers hit hard
Those in the farming industry say the ban caused great harm to their health, family and future.
In Polonnaruwa province, north central Sri Lanka, 62-year-old rice farmer Gamini Ariyaratne, who faces a 50 per cent loss this year from his rice yield, is frustrated.
“We are furious! Angry! Not just me - but all the farmers who cultivated here are angry,” Mr Ariyaratne says.
Gamini Ariyaratne is a rice farmer in Polonnaruwa province, north central Sri Lanka.
The community’s anger was evident as protests turned to riots as people's lives turned upside down with no support from the government.
We are furious! Angry! Not just me - but all the farmers who cultivated here are angry.Gamini Ariyaratne
The second-generation farmer says he won’t be encouraging his children to take up farming with the way things are going.
“What is the point if someone cannot make a living out of it… It is synonymous with giving up life itself.”
But while it was a massive shock to many, an entire country going organic was the moment people like Dr Ranil Senanayake had been dreaming of.
Green for good
Dr Senanayake is an ecologist and organic guru, who was one of the first students to formally study organic agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley in the early 1970s.
For 30 years and counting he’s run Belipola – an organic farm in south central Sri Lanka – and says the knowledge of organic farming, something that’s been done for centuries, has been lost.
“Organic agriculture has been practised in Sri Lanka for at least 3000 years,” he says.
“You have to have the humility to understand that this is nothing new.
“Back then organic agriculture was almost synonymous with hippies - there was no market for it.
“It's only the people who were sort of committed to nature, who was committed to all organic agriculture.”
Dr Ranil Senanayake is an ecologist and organic guru.
“Most farmers don’t believe they can have a diverse farm with different crops, all integrated and make it a commercial success.
“Now we have farmers who have their own farms who are coming here and working with us to learn how to develop further their farms to become like this.”
Dr Senanayake believes a transition is possible if farmers are provided the right tools and more importantly - time.
“[The ruling] has done damage, not irreparable because the world is waking up to the fact that you need clean food, so the market for organic is going to grow.
“The sooner we get ready to supply the world with clean food, the better off we will be.”
