3 ms·

Sri Lanka banned the use and importation of chemical fertilizers before though.

dredmorbius 4y ago
A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    That's not the point I'm addressing. asabjorn's claim was that ag productivity was directly sabotaged. That is a highly unlikely reading of a situation I see as: 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency reserves. 2. Amongst other measures taken, fertiliser and pesticide imports were reduced. Because of financial necessity, not as some "degrowth is good" initiative. 3. Resulting ground truth was that ag productivity collapsed, as you note. Again, the driver was not "let's de-grow the economy", but "we can't afford what we had". In the context of other comments I've made on this thread, what Sri Lanka are experiencing might better be interpreted as an unplanned collapse rather than a longer-term, planned, and engineered de-growth. Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban itself was a consequence, not a driver, of unplanned collapse. The usual poster-child of the alternative viewpoint might be Cuba. That country also saw a dramatic reduction in foreign support when its patron state the Soviet Union itself collapsed. There was a dramatic and difficult period of adjustment, but the result has been a stable and sufficient existence, if not one at notional OECD / major industrialised nation levels of wealth and income.
    - asabjorn 4y ago
      Do you have any sources supporting your claims?
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641
        asabjorn 4y ago
        > 2. Amongst other measures taken, fertiliser and pesticide imports were reduced. Because of financial necessity, not as some "degrowth is good" initiative. In your reuters link seem to contradict your claim: "The dramatic fall in yields follows a decision last April by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban all chemical fertilisers in Sri Lanka". It was officially rolled back after protests, but "only a trickle of chemical fertilisers made it to farms" so it sounds like supply lines acted as if they were still in place. > 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency reserves. That doesn't seem like a great excuse for banning fertilizer, or an explanation for why after rollback of ban only a "only a trickle" of fertilizer was available. The claims in my source and reuters seems to be that the supply was not there, not that fertilizer prices were high. Do you have any source saying fertilizer was available at much higher cost? > https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... Regardless of competency in Sri Lankas governments execution they have been working with WEF on their sustainable farming goals for a while. This agenda seek to ban fertilizer, make us all eat bugs instead of meat and move to organic farming. Getting a high ESG score due to meeting sustainability goals grants benefits when getting loans, Sri Lankas is 98, so I share your intuition that a huge contributing factor is that they really need those loans due to long term mismanagement. As I've pointed out elsewhere other WEF sustainable farming aligned governments such as the Dutch have implemented very similar policies and as abruptly, triggering the same kind of large scale protests and dire outcomes: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge... I am at this point taking WEF seriously, as real-world negative outcomes does not seem to stop implementation of their catastrophic tyrannical policies.

A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...

LewisVerstappen 4y ago
After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  That's not the point I'm addressing. asabjorn's claim was that ag productivity was directly sabotaged. That is a highly unlikely reading of a situation I see as: 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency reserves. 2. Amongst other measures taken, fertiliser and pesticide imports were reduced. Because of financial necessity, not as some "degrowth is good" initiative. 3. Resulting ground truth was that ag productivity collapsed, as you note. Again, the driver was not "let's de-grow the economy", but "we can't afford what we had". In the context of other comments I've made on this thread, what Sri Lanka are experiencing might better be interpreted as an unplanned collapse rather than a longer-term, planned, and engineered de-growth. Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban itself was a consequence, not a driver, of unplanned collapse. The usual poster-child of the alternative viewpoint might be Cuba. That country also saw a dramatic reduction in foreign support when its patron state the Soviet Union itself collapsed. There was a dramatic and difficult period of adjustment, but the result has been a stable and sufficient existence, if not one at notional OECD / major industrialised nation levels of wealth and income.
  - asabjorn 4y ago
    Do you have any sources supporting your claims?
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641
      - asabjorn 4y ago
        > 2. Amongst other measures taken, fertiliser and pesticide imports were reduced. Because of financial necessity, not as some "degrowth is good" initiative. In your reuters link seem to contradict your claim: "The dramatic fall in yields follows a decision last April by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban all chemical fertilisers in Sri Lanka". It was officially rolled back after protests, but "only a trickle of chemical fertilisers made it to farms" so it sounds like supply lines acted as if they were still in place. > 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency reserves. That doesn't seem like a great excuse for banning fertilizer, or an explanation for why after rollback of ban only a "only a trickle" of fertilizer was available. The claims in my source and reuters seems to be that the supply was not there, not that fertilizer prices were high. Do you have any source saying fertilizer was available at much higher cost? > https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... Regardless of competency in Sri Lankas governments execution they have been working with WEF on their sustainable farming goals for a while. This agenda seek to ban fertilizer, make us all eat bugs instead of meat and move to organic farming. Getting a high ESG score due to meeting sustainability goals grants benefits when getting loans, Sri Lankas is 98, so I share your intuition that a huge contributing factor is that they really need those loans due to long term mismanagement. As I've pointed out elsewhere other WEF sustainable farming aligned governments such as the Dutch have implemented very similar policies and as abruptly, triggering the same kind of large scale protests and dire outcomes: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge... I am at this point taking WEF seriously, as real-world negative outcomes does not seem to stop implementation of their catastrophic tyrannical policies.