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It wasn’t green dogma, that was just a retcon. There simply wasn’t enough foreign currency reserves for import. Prices have rocketed and the president instead

It wasn’t green dogma, that was just a retcon. There simply wasn’t enough foreign currency reserves for import. Prices have rocketed and the president instead of admitting that decided to say they were going organic. Sri Lanka presidents children spent all their foreign reserves on a white elephant airport and golf courses and due to Covid the principle sources of foreign reserves (tourism and money sent home from domestic and construction workers in the middle east). It was a perfect storm of black swan and incompetence/corruption. I have several dear friends desperate for help over there. I managed to send some rice and cooking oil but it just got stolen along the supply chain somewhere.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Are your friends eligible to expatriate? Are any visas in developed countries available to them?
MrsPeaches 4y ago
> It was a perfect storm of black swan and incompetence/corruption. Nit pick (assuming you are referring to Covid as a black swan): Covid wasn’t a black swan event. We knew a pandemic was quite likely to happen (if rand) and before 9/11 was generally seen as one of the biggest security threats to developed nations. I quite like the term “black elephant” meaning: “an event which is extremely likely and widely predicted by experts, but people attempt to pass it off as a Black Swan when it finally happens.” https://postnormaltim.es/black-elephant https://postnormaltim.es/black-elephant
hgomersall 4y ago
I've just come to realise, they were maintaining a currency peg to the dollar. That explains where all the foreign reserves went.
pkaye 4y ago
> There simply wasn’t enough foreign currency reserves for import. If foreign currency was the issue they why did the subsequently import organic fertilizer?
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  The comment clearly doesn't make any sense, fertilizer or not. It's a tautological explanation of the sort "they're poor because they don't have enough money", just rephrased a bit to look less ridiculous. I honestly regretted even having read another foreign policy thread on HN after seeing something like that upvoted to the top once again. Must remember to stay out of anything non-tech related.
NoPie 4y ago
This is strange take. Yes, there were several reasons why the country got into financial difficulties, however the decision to switch from nitrogen fertilizer to organic one was clearly predictable to cause even more problems. More than a century ago people feared Malthusian catastrophe, that food crops won't be able to feed growing global population. What saved us was the invention of Haber-Bosch process, chemical synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer from air nitrogen. If globally there was enough organic fertilizer available, we would have never need for synthesized nitrogen fertilizer. That's not the case however. Fertilizer costs money but if you wanted to switch 100% to organic fertilizer, due to global shortage it would cost even more. The problem with toxic deliveries of Chinese organic fertilizer were fully predictable – if they offered to sell it for prices that were too good to be true, then most surely they were. The economics with inorganic fertilizer is simple: you buy it for X dollars and then you get crops that you can sell for Y dollars where Y > X. Save X dollars by not buying the fertilizer and lose Y dollars. By switching to organic fertilizer you would have to spend Z dollars where Z > X. How can it be a reasonable advice? It is the same as saying: if you right now cannot afford high gas prices, buy an electric car. Obviously, a person who cannot even afford to pay for gas clearly cannot afford to buy more costly electric car.
- sampo 4y ago
  > What saved us was the invention of Haber-Bosch process, chemical synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer from air nitrogen. Of equal importance is Norman Borlaug, who bred new wheat and corn varieties that were able to make use of the fertilizers and grow large harvests. https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/norman-borlaug-legacy-documentary/ https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/norman-b...
  - eesmith 4y ago
    And who, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, pointed out it was "a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation ... But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only." This is long-term view is shared with Ehrlich, whose "Population Bomb" appears (based on the cut-off for non-subscribers) to be ridiculed by the author of this essay.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Are your friends eligible to expatriate? Are any visas in developed countries available to them?

MrsPeaches 4y ago

> It was a perfect storm of black swan and incompetence/corruption. Nit pick (assuming you are referring to Covid as a black swan): Covid wasn’t a black swan event. We knew a pandemic was quite likely to happen (if rand) and before 9/11 was generally seen as one of the biggest security threats to developed nations. I quite like the term “black elephant” meaning: “an event which is extremely likely and widely predicted by experts, but people attempt to pass it off as a Black Swan when it finally happens.” https://postnormaltim.es/black-elephant https://postnormaltim.es/black-elephant

hgomersall 4y ago

I've just come to realise, they were maintaining a currency peg to the dollar. That explains where all the foreign reserves went.

pkaye 4y ago

> There simply wasn’t enough foreign currency reserves for import. If foreign currency was the issue they why did the subsequently import organic fertilizer?

trompetenaccoun 4y ago
The comment clearly doesn't make any sense, fertilizer or not. It's a tautological explanation of the sort "they're poor because they don't have enough money", just rephrased a bit to look less ridiculous. I honestly regretted even having read another foreign policy thread on HN after seeing something like that upvoted to the top once again. Must remember to stay out of anything non-tech related.

NoPie 4y ago

This is strange take. Yes, there were several reasons why the country got into financial difficulties, however the decision to switch from nitrogen fertilizer to organic one was clearly predictable to cause even more problems. More than a century ago people feared Malthusian catastrophe, that food crops won't be able to feed growing global population. What saved us was the invention of Haber-Bosch process, chemical synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer from air nitrogen. If globally there was enough organic fertilizer available, we would have never need for synthesized nitrogen fertilizer. That's not the case however. Fertilizer costs money but if you wanted to switch 100% to organic fertilizer, due to global shortage it would cost even more. The problem with toxic deliveries of Chinese organic fertilizer were fully predictable – if they offered to sell it for prices that were too good to be true, then most surely they were. The economics with inorganic fertilizer is simple: you buy it for X dollars and then you get crops that you can sell for Y dollars where Y > X. Save X dollars by not buying the fertilizer and lose Y dollars. By switching to organic fertilizer you would have to spend Z dollars where Z > X. How can it be a reasonable advice? It is the same as saying: if you right now cannot afford high gas prices, buy an electric car. Obviously, a person who cannot even afford to pay for gas clearly cannot afford to buy more costly electric car.

sampo 4y ago
> What saved us was the invention of Haber-Bosch process, chemical synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer from air nitrogen. Of equal importance is Norman Borlaug, who bred new wheat and corn varieties that were able to make use of the fertilizers and grow large harvests. https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/norman-borlaug-legacy-documentary/ https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/norman-b...
- eesmith 4y ago
  And who, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, pointed out it was "a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation ... But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only." This is long-term view is shared with Ehrlich, whose "Population Bomb" appears (based on the cut-off for non-subscribers) to be ridiculed by the author of this essay.