The presidential polls What about

agriculture and health?

POSTED ON DECEMBER 28TH, 2014

Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada
The common candidate was a former minister of health, and also a former minister of
agriculture. His election manifesto is remarkable in the absence of any statements
regarding the crisis in agriculture, health and environmental degradation, resulting in
kidney disease, dengue fever and malnutrition spreading in many parts of the country.
A similar lacuna is notable in the manifestos of the ruling party, and other candidates.
The election manifestos are influenced by city-based political ideologues concerned
only about executive power and regime change. The campaign focuses on
constitutional change and claims of good governance, but ignores the more important
need to re-think in terms of long term sustainable development.
In the halcyon days of the Senanayakes, agriculture was a primary concern as D. S.
Senanayake was inspired by the vision of the ancient hydraulic civilization of
Anuradhapura and Pollonnnaruwa. This vision was extended and ably supported by
engineering visionaries like Manamperi and M. S. M. Fernando. Even N. M. Perera
shared this vision and consulted these engineers when needed. There was a vision to
dam every river and conserve every drop of water, as Parakramabahu is reported to
have said. Rapid clearing of forests and re-plantation with crops to feed a fast-growing
population were achieved using modern machinery. Hunger has been averted and a
measure of self-sufficiency has been reached, thanks to high-yielding varieties of rice
that require less water, less time to grow, and respond even to very small amounts of
fertilizers, developed by our agricultural scientists who have remained unrecognized by
a public unaware of the effort at the frontier of science.
However, this vision of extensive hydraulic schemes and agriculture based on it,
enlarging on the nostalgic image of ancient times ignored dangerous ecological

consequences. Indeed, the fall of the rice bowl in Mannar (Yodha weva), the rise and
fall of Anuradhapura and Pollonaruwa may have been connected with their own
inherent deep-seated ecological contradictions.
Unlike in ancient times when an irrigation project may take many long years to
complete, even the mighty Mahaweli could be re-routed and dammed in a decade. But
this kind of very rapid movement of earth, bringing deep-seated geological layers full
of salts and minerals onto the surface layers can have serious consequences. Rapid
clearing of land leads to irreparable erosion and degradation of the quality of drinking
water.
The specter of chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDU) appeared in the
Rajarata in the 1990s. Since then it has silently stalked Rajarata families causing
tragedy. Meanwhile, the whole country is increasingly falling under the grip of the
Dengu mosquito. In the old days, when tragedy happens, evil forces, Vas and Kili
(curses and pollution) were blamed. In modern societies, such problems are rapidly
dealt with by the medical and agricultural professionals. Sri Lanka, unlike many
developing nations, has a record of effective action controlling malaria, smallpox, TB,
mumps, typhoid, whooping cough, hookworm etc.
But then, that was before every thing became highly politicized or left to the private
sector and the IMF. The Eelam wars had to end before politicians took notice of
CKDU. The Dengu mosquito became important only when it became a threat to
Colombo itself.
US-based environmental NGOs and their indigenous counterparts dictate how people
deal with CKDU, Dengu or Malaria even in Sri Lanka. US bans prevent the domestic
use of DDT in spite of the WHO ruling in 2006, giving DDT a clean slate. Ignoring the
overall degradation in the environment, quick-fix solutions have become the favorite of
politicians and self-styled environmentalists who are uninformed of even the basics of
environmental chemistry. But they ride the wave of public approbation based on public
fear.
In December 2014, in the middle of the presidential election campaign, the Rajapaksa
government gazetted a limited ban on a key herbicide, glyphosate, restricting the ban
to the Rajarata. It promised clean water to its residents at an election rally. Not to be
outdone, his opponent Maithreepala Sirisena, a former agriculture minister who sat
impotent over these problems, has apparently declared that he will ban all
agrochemicals.
Surely, banning all agrochemicals will have a more dire economic impact on the
country than constitutional revisions discussed in election manifestos. Will they at
least solve the CKDU problem? Why ban fertilizers and herbicides used safely (without
CKDU) in other provinces and in other countries? How are they implicated in a health
problem in the Rajarata.? A rational environmental and agricultural policy based on
our current population, and our need to feed them and retain a sustainable soil and
water system seem to be far from the minds of our legislators or political gurus of the

Left or the Right.

The attempt to make political capital out of the Rajarata CKDU tragedy began at least
five years ago. Marxist groups tried to use the farmers as their pawns in their struggles.
Other groups interested in colour revolutions moved in; they did the same in
Rathupaswela where the water became acidic for geological reasons. Individuals as
disparate as Tharama Kunanayakam in Geneva, and Rev. Duleep Chikera in Colombo
incorrectly viewed Rathpaswela as a justified uprising against industrial capitalism.
Meanwhile, independent nationalist groups like the Swarna-Hansa foundation even
talked of suing the World Health Organization (WHO) for allowing the use of
inorganic fertilizers knowing that it is a poison !
A free market that had removed all rational controls (even on fertilizers and drugs),
together with a fertilizer subsidy scheme had drenched the soil with an unnecessary
excess of agro-chemicals, asphyxiating the soil. A healthy soil is made up of its
microorganisms vital to its health. An over-arching belief that our food and water are
unhealthy due to excessive use of agrochemicals became partly true. In overreacting, some looked for a nave ban on all agro-chemicals. Claims in newspapers that
Sri Lankan rice and tea were contaminated with arsenic or cadmium were repeatedly
made, and rebutted by scientists armed with analytical data.
A WHO study, as well as independent Peradeniya, and Japanese studies of the
Rajarata water surprised many in showing that there were no significant amounts of
metal toxins like arsenic or cadmium, and that pesticides like glyphosate and
chlorohydrocarbons etc., were also absent. If arsenic, cadmium and glyphosate are
NOT found in the Rajarata water, they cannot be the cause of CKDU.
In contrast, there is now evidence that most of the drinking wells in the Rajarata have
excess amounts of salts (not just common salt, but many other salts), and this
aggregated salinity (called ionicity) that is not easily detected by taste has been
proposed by several scientists as the most probable cause of CKDU. The origin of this
salinity may be from the wash-off of excess fertilizer during the rainy season of the hill
country. This is shown in the rapid rise of phosphate levels in the Rajarata tanks
during its dry zone, when it is raining in the tea growing hill country.
The free-market economics of J. R. Jayawardene was applied even to fertilizers.
Farmers were exhorted to buy more and more fertilizers to get more yields. But the
scientific reality is that too much of a good thing becomes bad. Instead of taking one
vitamin pill a day, if you take five you get poisoned. But some farmers have been found
to apply even five to ten times the needed amount of fertilizer, paying very little since
the fertilizers are subsidized. The high sales volumes provide profits to the merchants.
The plants and the soil will optimally uptake only a given amount of nitrates and
phosphates, and any excess will get simply washed off by the rains, to be carried away
by irrigation works to the more fragile ecology of the dry zone to pollute the water
table. Furthermore, the earth works of giant irrigation schemes of the last four decades
have moved deep-lying layers to the surface, releasing salts and minerals that

contribute to the ionicity, in addition to natural redox processes typical of areas like
Maha-Illuppallama and Padaviya.
Fortunately, a country with torrential monsoons and floods can also benefit from
flooding that washes out pollution, especially in the wet zone, and occasionally in the
dry zone too. Floods are an important ecological correction mechanism in
environments that have been badly managed. The election manifestos are high on
constitutional change and issues of financial corruption, but ignore the more
important need to re-think in terms of long term sustainable development where we
prevent periodic flooding as well as land erosion.
Glyphosate is a well-known herbicide that acts on plants but non-toxic to animals and
humans as seen from three decades of use in the West. It is also cardinal to the
technology of genetically modified (GMO) crops commercialized by Monsanto. A
California doctor linked to an NGO in battle with Monsanto, and his indigenous
partners in Colombo argued that glyphosate was the cause of kidney disease in the
Rajarata. Their strong political links enabled them to get the Mahinda Rajapaksa
government to agree to ban this herbicide in September 2013.
However, even the politicians soon understood that this would destroy our plantations
and hopes of food self-sufficiency. The impracticality of replacing fertilizers by
compost, and herbicides by hand weeding in the internationally competitive tea and
rubber industries was self-evident. Switching to traditional rice giving 1/3 the harvest,
and costing five times even in normal times, would shoot the price some 15-20 times,
not to mention the effect on vegetables, fruits etc. The idea, if implemented, would
have dire effects. The proposed ban was shelved.
The opposition to Glyphosate is purely a side-skrimish in the anti-GMO battle. A
GMO technology, if controlled by a giant agrochemical company should be absolutely
opposed.
Glyphosate is not the only case where the Global NGOs have influenced our policies to
our detriment. We fog our environment with poisonous insecticides hoping to
eradicate Dengu but fail to do so. DDT is the safe answer to get rid of the Dengu
mosquito, but this goes against US policy regarding DDT (we are NOT advocating the
use of DDT for agricultural use).
Elections are when promises are made. Rajapaksa offered to give clean water to the
Rajarata. This has been a regular recommendation for fighting CKDU given by
scientists and medical men, but eclipsed by fear-mongering calls for banning
poisonous agro-chemicals. Such bans will crush the already imperiled Rajarata
farmers, possibly leading to the end of agriculture there. Sirisenas proposal to
TOTALLY ban agrochemicals to fight CKDU is mere hypocritical pandering to public
fears to gain votes.
Posted by Thavam