ponytug
Super Member
Sri Lanka’s organic farming disaster, explained
Sri Lanka’s organic farming disaster, explained
A shift to better farming practices is possible, but Sri Lanka’s abrupt switch to organics offers a bitter lesson in how to change food systems in a sustainable way.www.vox.com
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A little perspective is warranted here. The switch to "organic" farming in Sri Lanka happened because of poor governance resulting in the depletion of their foreign exchange, which meant that the country could not buy or import fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers were literally forced to change their farming practices overnight, with no training, and no time to prepare.
So, totally unplanned, no warning, and the result was chaos.
So why would anyone be at all surprised that it did not work well? Nobody should. But it is not a general case, and the lessons to be learned are, in my view, not about farming.
All the best,
Peter