Dear Friends
and Students
Michael
Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism
at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, says “Came from a plant, eat
it; was made in a plant, don’t.”
Across the
world, people recognized the importance of eating organic. Not only does organic food help reduce public health
risk, there is strong evidence that food grown organically are rich in
nutrients, like Vitamin C, Iron, Magnesium, and Phosphorus, with less exposure
to Nitrates and Pesticide residues. NGOs, Green Activists and Health conscious people
are trying their level best to promote this culture.
Till here the
story is nice! Seeing response from people, Few Governments are making genuine
efforts to promote organic culture in their respective states/countries. One
such country is Sri Lanka! Government is pushing towards organic farming and
making stringent measures in this direction! They made an agriculture policy
and decision to ban the use and import of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides
and weedicides in pursuit of a “100 per cent organic food producer”!
You know what
happened? Economy got impacted heavily. Food production got drastically down.
As per the article, the average yield from paddy can drop by 25% if chemical fertilizers
are fully replaced by organic fertilizers. In
contrast, applying organic fertilizer with the recommended dosages of chemical fertilizers
would improve the profitability of farming by 16%. The tea export loss is
estimated to 35%, amounting to Rs. 84 billion! Coconut yields by 30%, tuning of
Rs. 18 billion. “A reduction in average agricultural productivity by 20% could
cause a decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 3.05 %” in Sri Lankan
context!
Thanks to
Pandemic, being a tourism dependent Nation, it has impacted economy severely. Finally,
Sri Lanka’s government declared an economic emergency amid rising food prices,
a depreciating currency, and depleting forex reserves.
Now this
situation is posing serious threat to other developing Nations. All of us know
organic food is healthy. However, if this kind of situation arises, food security
becomes the issue. Again Governments may allow chemicals before it boomerangs.
What is the
solution? We need to find localized solutions. A uniform policy may not help.
If a farmer is having 100 acres, may be 20% of it can be experimented on organic
way. This kind of practice improves the yield, balances the trade deficiency
and sustain the economy.
Sometimes
thinking healthy is unhealthy. We are in that World. Sad but unavoidable. World
is caught in the vicious circle. No option but move on!
Do we have
better solution for this crisis? Time Will Teach Us!
Your
Well-wisher
Ravi
Saripalle
Join Inspire
to Innovate Storytelling Movement (i2itm.blogspot.com)
Source
Inspiration: https://theprint.in/world/how-sri-lankas-overnight-flip-to-total-organic-farming-has-led-to-an-economic-disaster/728414/?fbclid=IwAR3eDdi4PbVro-PxiXL5VkXM6-4K4oKLLPWCW7X4KB1PsCeHdjQenr2ktKw
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