Ever since Gottabya Rajapaksha’s sudden step to transform Sri Lanka into a completely organic nation. The Island nation has had to face a lot of problems regarding crop production and fertiliser utilisation.
This had led the President of the nation to establish a Green Council, ban chemical fertilizers and after facing failure to keep up the same production levels as 2020go back on his word and import chemical fertilisers like potassium chloride (KCL) and nitrogen nano fertilisers urgently from India and other parts of the world to satiate its farming sector.
On Thursday Indian Air Force planes carrying 100 tonnes of Nano, Nitrogen liquid fertilizers landed in Colombo on Thursday.
This sudden delivery of Liquid Nitrogen according to the Indian high commission in Colombo was in response to an urgent call by the Sri Lankan Government for the delivery of Nano liquid Nitrogen fertilizers.
The Sri Lankan agricultural sector is currently going through its maha cropping season in which paddy which is a prominent cash crop is sown and harvested, Nano nitrogen fertilisers are chemical fertilisers that are rich in nitrogen and can be easily absorbed by the plants.
Hence, these Nano nitrogen liquid fertilisers will surely be of huge help to the island nation however the rushed decision’s by the current administration have made the farming sector which is currently about 30% of the Sri Lankan population to lose their trust in the current administration.
According to some exclusive insights from some experts who attended Biofach India (An organic farming expo held by NürnbergMesse) which was covered exclusively by Krishi Jagran, Sri Lanka’s failure to employ Organic Farming is because of the higher toxicity levels of the land in Sri Lanka due to excessive use of chemical fertiliser and the sudden decision making of Its president.
Recently R.P Gunwardane an Author at Colombo Telegraph said “This organic fertilizer episode is a result of a non-scientific and a defective decision-making process in the government. Unfortunately, there were many such instances during the tenure of the present government. At least this time the government is trying to avoid the disaster at the last moment by reversing the decision to ban all inorganic fertilizers.”
Incidents like these are examples for Indian policymakers to not rush into any decision without proper research and how an understanding of science at an empirical level is required in everything related to farming, especially organic farming.
