Last week this writer focused on the link between national intangible heritage, health, national security and the economy, in a backdrop of pandemics. This week we look at the same connection, but focusing on national agriculture.
We can begin by examining a 1998 statement from the Sri Lanka Farmers Forum to the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research CGIAR:
“We have watched for many years, as the progression of experts, scientists and development agents passed through our communities with some or another facet of the modern scientific world.
We confess that at the start we were unsophisticated in matters of the outside world and welcomed this input. We followed advice and we planted as we were instructed. The result was a loss of the varieties of seeds that we carried with us through history, often spanning three or more millennia.
The result was the complete dependence of high input crops that robbed us of crop independence. In addition we farmers, producers of food, respected for our ability to feed populations, were turned into the poisoners of land and living things, including fellow human beings.
The result in Sri Lanka is that we suffer from social and cultural dislocation and suffer the highest pesticide related death toll on the planet.
Motives
Was this the legacy that you the agricultural scientists wanted to bring to us? We think not. We think that you had good motives and intentions, but left things in the hands of narrowly educated, insensitive people.”
The above quotation is self-explanatory of Sri Lanka’s past few decades. Decades that depleted the soil of the land, its indigenous plant species and enhanced what is euphemistically called ‘lifestyle diseases.’
We are today worried about Covid-19, a flu mimicking immunity annihilator, which has the power only if a nation has sick human beings.
The reality is that for much of seventy three years that we have spent as a so called free nation, we have been feeding people poison and sickening the nation. We have been having a silent pandemic of chemical poisoning and ironically we have paid for it billions of our money.
Having bought, without any introspection, lock stock and barrel the scientific agriculture ideology – known as the green revolution once staunchly promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is the agriculture related entity of the UN, functioning parallel to the World Health Organization (WHO), we probably only realised the gravity of our misdirection when in 2015 two United Nations experts sounded alarm.
Sounding a serious warning on hazardous substance and waste and right to food these experts called for worldwide phase-out on the use of highly hazardous pesticides in the backdrop of governments, businesses and others from around the world gathering in Geneva, Switzerland, for the fourth meeting of the International Conference on Chemicals Management in September and October 2015.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Hazardous Substance and Waste, Baskut Tuncak, was quoted then as saying that the risks are particularly grave in developing countries “many of which import these highly hazardous pesticides despite having inadequate systems to reduce risks.”
It would be recalled that the original classical oath of the father of modern medicine, Hippocratic involved the importance of using nature based food as medicine.
Qualities
Intense farming-based agrochemical industrialisation causes the elimination of the medicinal and nutritional qualities of food and this was lethal for countries such as Sri Lanka which had thousands of varieties of endemic leaves, yams, roots, herbs which double up as food as well as medicine.
Over the years the chemicals put into the soil destroyed much of these freely growing varieties and made us dependent on foreign generated hybrid seed varieties which we mostly cultivate today, buying them from western multinational companies. Thus agriculture became synonymous with both poison and dependency.
We can see today that national security is in large proportion equal to economic security; for example it is the vastly economic secure nations that have oppressed other nations and still do, who preach human rights to others who have not garnered similar economic clout.
Hence a nation can withhold external interference almost fully if that nation is economically sound and do not have to depend on the judgments of outsiders who use punishments such as sanctions to make countries follow their agenda.
Nations, especially those with ancient knowledge such as Sri Lanka cannot be economically sound if we abandon such knowledge and depend totally on the adopted.
As a nation we have to spend sufficient soul searching as to whether this cloak of poverty and dependency we are wearing has ever been needed.
Countries throughout the world are still under the pandemic of chemical agriculture but Sri Lanka, a nation which survived for thousands of years as an agrarian civilisation has finally taken the decision to put an end to chemical fertiliser.
The Government spends more than US$ 400 million annually on chemical fertiliser imports.
This could be categorised as akin to throwing money in the drain says Ranjit Seneviratne (84), an engineer and a former food and nutrition specialist with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), based in Rome.
In the 1980s he quit the FAO and chose the opposite direction of organic agriculture helping the late Ranjit de Silva, considered the father of the organic rejuvenation in Sri Lanka.
The interview with Ranjit Seneviratne is separately annexed on this page.
Engineer Priyantha Dayaratna who is a researcher and scholar of Sinhala Govithena notes that the soil fertilising inherent to Sri Lanka was traditionally linked with the universe, i.e. sun, moon, stars and explains that our ancestors knew when exactly it would rain or when there would a longer than usual drought based on their intrinsic connection with nature. “We are speaking of a time when there were no agriculture departments or irrigation departments,” he states.
“Hence Sinhala Govithena was part of Sobhadaham Govithena which was an integrated process. After we became colonised and globalised we abandoned our own heritage and started to learn agriculture theory from the West. We then lost the holistic nature of our agriculture,” explains Eng. Dayaratna.
“Yes, the Sinhala farmer worked very hard on the field, especially for paddy cultivation but he also relaxed for much of the time allowing nature to look after the cultivation and the soil enrichment maintaining the equilibrium of the soil,” he adds. There were many other agrarian processes that were linked with kemkrama, manthrakrama or rituals that were connected with Buddhism and used for cultivation historically, just as it was for human health.
All this resulted in us not needing the desperate measures taken through the routes of Western science based chemical agrarian technology to kill the earth and humans for the paradoxical goal of maintaining a half dead life.
The Buddhist ethic that agriculture was infused that never allowed for the creatures that kept the soil fertile by the sole act of occupying it as their home to be harmed.
There were many non-violent methods adopted by ancient farmers to handle some of these creatures when they metamorphosed into being ‘pests’ for the crops. Even when chenna cultivation was carried out, it was done historically with much time and effort to chase the animals away and the fire was not allowed to scorch the earth. What Eng. Dayaratna explains is connected to our history as a nation that had rich forest cover and where nature existed undisturbed, with only a thin divide between agriculture and forestry. We have many Sri Lankans well versed with nature based soil protection agrarian models promoted by those such as Ranjit Seneviratne, analog forestry initiator Dr. Ranil Senanayake and Lankan native farming expert Thilak Kandegama.
These agrarian models retain the nature based elements intact as much as possible as in a forest when nature is undisturbed by man. These individuals insist that large areas of land do not have to be cleared in a desert like fashion to cultivate the vegetables and fruits we need and that this could be structured alongside a foresting model that will save Sri Lanka’s soil and money in importing any kind of fertiliser.
Soil
What is described as fertilisation of the soil as ‘organic’ is what we essentially mean when the soil that has all of bio diversity’s components within it and is naturally very dark in colour.
Dr. Kumudu Dahanayake (MBBS, DLM, MD) trained in Clinical Forensic Medicine and Forensic Pathology, a discipline of modern Allopathy has specialised in Nilawedakama alongside a traditional cultivation method that focuses on nutritionalising the soil (Govithenata Aushada). He said that the micronutrient content of soil associated by fibres and beneficial micro flora are essential for a disease-free life. Dr. Dahanayake notes that historical records mention that during the kingdom of King Parakramabahu, when the highest-ever yields and extent of cultivation had been recorded, a herbal mixture called ‘Kumburukashaya’ was known to be used in Sri Lankan farming practice.
It is also known that Ayurveda has the branch of treatment for plants called Wruksha Ayurveda.
The Govithenata Aushada concept is along these lines and is similar to the treatments described in the book ‘Sinhala Govithena’ written by Ven. Medauyangoda Wimalakeerthi which includes a treatment method made of leafy materials and ash.
Dr. Dahanayake said that several historical chronicles such as ‘Govithanthraya’, ‘Wewwansaya’, ‘Meghapatalasamhithawa,’ had further described ancient farming technology of Lankans.
“In Sri Lanka currently the soil is excessively damaged. As is common knowledge this is due to long-term use of agrochemicals and loss of microbiota owing to chemical-induced stress,”states Dr. Dahanayake.
The application of herbal ingredients to the soil, including several common plants and not so easily found plant varieties as well as herbs added with dung, as per the Govithenata Aushada concept does not need any other agricultural inputs. This means that this traditional method does not need chemical or organic fertiliser or any pesticides or insecticides.
When the herbal liquid is applied to the farmland serially the seed germination potential is augmented by the herbal mixture. The potential for this to be done as a mass scale local industry within Sri Lanka is immense, states Dr. Dahanayake who maintains that there is scope for using rural Lankan labour to create both local and export agrarian products.
Currently this is being done within Sri Lanka by Hela Suwaya, the Hela Nilawedakama linked traditional medicine entity that uses nature based nutrition as the sole way to heal the body.
Compared to the massive expenses for purchasing agrochemicals and seed paddy, at least Rs. 40,000 of foreign exchange per acre, required by conventional farming, this herbal technology need only less than Rs. 4,000 per acre Dr. Dahanayake said.
Transplantation or weeding is not required and the detoxification and revitalisation of the soil is manifested within a few days as seen by the appearance of earth worms and restoration of bio diversity.
Acres
This method has been used in Sri Lanka from 2011 to the 2015/16 Maha season cultivating 7,000 acres with a total of 3,000 farmers.
In the 2020 Yala season cultivation of 10,000 acres had been embarked upon through the Ministry of Agriculture. On the invitation of the Mahaweli Authority last year Hela Suwaya had started cultivating in the first-ever gazetted organic zone called Knuckles Organic Zone in Matale. With the support of the State Ministry of Education in the Matugama Educational Zone similar cultivation initiatives had been embarked upon in collaboration with temples. More such education based initiatives are needed at this phase when the country is embarking on organic agriculture, he said.
As this herbal mixture to treat the soil is a traditional medicinal application, the amount of raw herbal ingredients needed to produce them are minimal compared to what is required in normal compost/organic based farming.
The manufacturing process requires several fermentation and various natural processing methods. There are still farmers in Sri Lanka who have been uncorrupted by the poisonous agriculture revolution who still retain knowledge as described. With such a vast range of indigenous options for treating the soil the question remains if Sri Lanka needs to be so enveloped in fear psychosis just because the country has ushered a policy to rid it of poisonous agriculture.
Following is the interview with Ranjit Seneviratne, a former official with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) who was based in Rome and since leaving that institution championed the cause of non-chemical biodiversity ‘forest garden’ method of cultivation which he experiments with at his residence in Kollupitiya.
Q: As someone instrumental in introducing organic agriculture to Sri Lanka in the 1980s could you explain what changed you from promoting the earlier chemical agriculture stand of the FAO?
A. The Agro-Biz people say the world cannot feed itself due to the population growth. I worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN at their Rome headquarters and many agro-scientists said exactly the opposite - that the world could feed itself twice over by simply eating the right type of food for good health.
What should be noted is that 70 percent of food the world needs are produced by small farmers.
Some decades ago sharing a farewell coffee we were having with one of the Senior Nutrition Scientists he said that the “Green Revolution” - the Chemical Agro Revolution was “a disaster that was going to happen to the world.” These were his exact words.
I argued back, as I was the only chap from a third-world country that if our farmers were going to get two and three harvests that it would surely benefit them. He said; “Son read “Small is beautiful” by Schumacher and “Silent Spring” by Rachael Carson.
I did and realised that he was right and that Sri Lanka would be destroyed by chemical agriculture.
At that time I did what I could. I gathered further details and wrote to my friend Ranjith de Silva who led the “Gami Seva Sevana” Organisation (GSS). Thereafter Ranjith de Silva pioneered organic farming in Sri Lanka by training farmers at the GSS Training Centre in Office Junction, Galaha.
Natural agriculture promotes “Regenerative Farming” or cooperating with the natural systems that exist in forests, to regenerate the soil (which usually has been farmed incorrectly for many years such as tilling the soil).
Today “no-till” systems are recommended so as not to disturb the natural living systems of the soil organisms. These consist of the various soil organisms, different types of earthworms, other worms, nematodes, fungus types, microbes and insects which all live in a dynamic matrix, each with its own niche in the soil.
In fact some fungi are known to have their kind of network that extend over the whole property and even encompass the next door properties. This is unique from country to country. The system of tilling or turning the soil over actually disturbs this living matrix, negatively affecting soil health. The soil itself is a living entity.
Therefore “regenerative” farming attempts to regenerate the soil by copying the system that exists in forests (automatic weed control through the layer of leaf and twigs or mulch etc. on top of the soil).
This enables automatic composting by the bottom layers of the same mulch, while the top layer dries out during the day and absorbs moisture during the night. This in turn makes watering unnecessary except perhaps during severe drought.
In addition selected weeds are used as cover crops prior to planting. This is to put carbon and nitrogen into the soil, because new research has found that all plants including weeds provide the soil with some 28 percent of the carbon they make from carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Other plants have “nodules” in their roots that put in nitrogen compounds.
Q: What is your practical experiments with these cultivation types you describe?
A. After I retired, I used my home garden as a sort of lab. I developed a system that embodies these strategies into what I call “Heal the Soil Forest Gardening” suitable for home gardens and even small scale commercial farms. If we promoted this widely it will effectively battle climate change as we then need not clear land for agriculture and waste our money on fertiliser. Nature itself is the fertiliser with this model.
I am also encouraging the idea of “sharing” through “Community Gardening” covering all open land areas. I would love to see this extended to spaces such as Vihara Maha Devi Park and even roadsides with “Agro-Forests” of Food and Medicinal plants to make food and medicine freely available to anyone. If this is taken up as a national policy we could solve several problems through this; such as ill-health, hunger, malnutrition, poverty and also climate change and save national revenue. I have created such a community garden by the entrance gate of the drive-way to my home. People from nearby pick what they need. They have become friends and sometimes bring me vegetables or fruits I do not have. This is the essence of the tradition of Sri Lanka. This has to be kept alive.
Q: You are also promoting the invention of a mobile blender type mechanism for waste food to be collected from house to house and transported to earth as a means of solving the fertiliser importation. Please explain.
A. Yes. At a Food Waste Workshop that I attended about two years ago I first made this suggestion to make a big mobile blender (within say a barrel) to make food waste sludge and design a tractor to carry a drum of the sludge with a driver operated valve or tap to let the sludge out and a “plough” at the front to dig a furrow and a “plate” at the rear to automatically draw soil to cover the furrow.
I would be happy to work with any entity, especially universities who may want to develop this idea further. All the food we waste is nutrition for the soil and will promote life of the creatures that live in it. The problem with modern education is that we spend zero effort at solving practical problems and we do not encourage children to innovate.
Q: Could you comment on enabling mass scale awareness about organic fertiliser creation?
A. We are trying to import organic fertiliser. On the other hand, we burn tons of “bio-mass” (leaves, sticks, branches) every day in home gardens. This is part of our post colonial addiction to lawns. We need a national effort right now to educate every person in Sri Lanka on the traditional/natural methods of fertilising the soil.
Why have we not realised that we could easily export our bio-mass to countries like China and Jordan to use it to reclaim desertified land. We could use our ancient traditional methods of herbalising of the soil for creating similar ‘soil boosters’ for other countries.
Through our agrarian heritage and knowledge alone we have countless ways of raising revenue. I really do not see why this country is categorised as poor or have to be dependent on other countries. It is our attitude and our knowledge about what is our own that has to be changed. It is this which will create the difference as to whether we save or waste our revenue.