Behind the chaos in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka: Why is the country in an economic crisis? | BBC News - Ayeshea Perera:

July 15, 2022 - "Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has told the country's military to do 'whatever is necessary to restore order', after protesters stormed his office. A state of emergency was declared after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country, following months of mass protests over the island's economic crisis.... People have been struggling with daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food and medicines.... The country doesn't have enough fuel for essential services like buses, trains and medical vehicles, and officials say it doesn't have enough foreign currency to import more....

"In late June, the government banned the sale of petrol and diesel for non-essential vehicles for two weeks. Sales of fuel remain severely restricted. Schools have closed, and people have been asked to work from home to help conserve supplies. Sri Lanka is unable to buy the goods it needs from abroad. And in May it failed to make an interest payment on its foreign debt for the first time in its history.... The country owes more than $51bn (£39bn) to foreign lenders, including $6.5bn to China, which has begun discussions about restructuring its loans....

"What led to the economic crisis? The government blamed the Covid pandemic, which badly affected Sri Lanka's tourist trade - one of its biggest foreign currency earners. It also says tourists were frightened off by a series of deadly bomb attacks in 2019. However, many experts blame President Rajapaksa's poor economic mismanagement.... Sri Lanka now imports $3bn (£2.3bn) more than it exports every year, and that is why it has run out of foreign currency.... 

"When Sri Lanka's foreign currency shortages became a serious problem in early 2021, the government tried to limit them by banning imports of chemical fertiliser. It told farmers to use locally sourced organic fertilisers instead. This led to widespread crop failure. Sri Lanka had to supplement its food stocks from abroad, which made its foreign currency shortage even worse."
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-610281

How to Alleviate the Looming Global Hunger Crisis | American Institute for Economic Research - Bjorn Lomborg:

June 6, 2022 - ""The catastrophe unfolding in Sri Lanka provides a sobering lesson. The government last year enforced a full transition to organic farming, appointing organics gurus as agricultural advisers, including some who claimed dubious links between agricultural chemicals and health problems. Despite extravagant claims that organic methods could produce comparable yields to conventional farming, within months the policy produced nothing but misery, with some food prices quintupling.

"Sri Lanka had been self-sufficient in rice production for decades, but tragically has now been forced to import $450 million worth of rice. Tea, the nation’s primary export crop and source of foreign exchange, was devastated, with economic losses estimated at $425 million. Before the country spiraled downward toward brutal violence and political resignations, the government was forced to offer $200 million in compensation to farmers and come up with $149 million in subsidies.

"Sri Lanka’s organic experiment failed fundamentally because of one simple fact: it does not have enough land to replace synthetic nitrogen fertilizer with animal manure. To shift to organics and keep production, it would need five to seven times more manure than its total manure today."

"Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, mostly made with natural gas, are a modern miracle, crucial for feeding the world. Largely thanks to this fertilizer, agricultural outputs were tripled in the last half-century, as the human population doubled. Artificial fertilizer and modern farming inputs are the reason the number of people working on farms has been slashed in every rich country, freeing people for other productive occupations.... Without those inputs, if a country — or the world — were to go entirely organic, nitrogen scarcity quickly becomes disastrous, just like we saw in Sri Lanka. That is why research shows going organic globally can only feed about half the current world population. Organic farming will lead to more expensive, scarcer food for fewer people, while gobbling up more nature."

[This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]
Read more: https://www.aier.org/article/how-to-alleviate-the-looming-global-hunger-crisis/