In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong | Hacker News Reader

In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong

foreignpolicy.com

31 pointsmrleinad17 comments

Grand plans usually go wrong. This probably has more to do with hubris and thinking that you can plan things top-down without paying enough attention to letting things develop organically than to organic farming.

You might be right, but as an anecdotal data point, I can confirm that every single farmer I've discussed this topic with, has claimed organic farming has smaller yields compared to organic farming, and that organic farming simply isn't sustainable if we expect food yields to increase to compensate for growing populations.

Once we're past the population peak and the population starts declining, on the other hand...

Of course organic farming has smaller yields. Otherwise everyone would be doing it. The point is that synthetic pesticides are bad for the consumer and the farmer.

Did you not read the article? The lack of pesticides led to a disastrous collapse of yields for the farmers. It's also unclear how bad synthetic pesticides are, at least those scrutinized and commonly used in the EU for example.

The article wasn't accounting for other possible effects, it just jumped straight to concluding organic farming was the culprit. During the same time period covered by the policy, agricultural yields in the US dropped significantly as well, primarily due to pandemic and climate impacts. The article mentioned that the pandemic hit months after the policy was implemented and that devastated tourism, which was one of the backbones of Sri Lanka's economy. In earlier sentences, the article implies that the organic farming policy is solely responsible for the economic problems. In short, this is a biased and unreliable assessment of the policy's impacts.

Your statement about US agricultural output appears to be incorrect; at least, it hit record export rates in 2021 [1]. And what you are saying about tourism is irrelevant, as the article clearly states that rice production fell by 20%, and tea production recorded a loss of 450 million USD. Farmers themselves are demanding that they be allowed to import fertilizers again. While it's true that we cannot know whether the organic switch was the sole cause of this disaster, it is both logical and plausible that it was a major factor.

Can you point to a single country that switched to organic farming and had increased agricultural output (ie, "better for farmers" as the comment above implies)?

[1] https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/02/08/america...

During the same policy period, South India produced record rice harvests. It has nothing to do with climate.

The article talks about a ban on synthetic fertilizers. Fertilizers are not pesticides.

To me the mistake here sounds like the fact that they rolled it out all at once. I’d have expected to see this implemented by slowly ramping up tariffs on non-organic fertilizers/pesticides over a number of years (like 5-10). It probably takes a few years for a farmer to effectively adapt to such a transition.

Coming soon to India:

"PM Modi urges farmers to go organic, says 'use cow dung, cow urine instead of chemical fertilisers'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVhz7gWLd0

That wonderful Indian cure-all: cow dung and cow urine.

What a mess. Reminds me of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union. There is a lot of garbage science in the organic movement, this just shows the incredible trade-offs this ideology can have.

Sri lanka also sent back large Chinese fertilizer order, which spoilt their relationship. Because of Sri lankas closeness with China, India declined to help financially.

https://archive.ph/kI6k2

Previous discussion (6 months ago, 221 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28443798

Evil=(how wrong you are) * (how sure you are) * (how much power you have)

The two last factors together= (how fast you implement changes)

We should have learnt this lesson from Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao. But here we are, doing the same thing again.

'Organic' does not mean no pesticides and no fertilizer. This article is mostly FUD.

At no point the article mentions no use of fertilizers at all. Their goal was to replace synthetic with natural ones, which apparently have lower yields.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com