Agriculture, or the production of food, has framed the history of social development through millennia. Honed over centuries of tending to a land and its soils, a traditional understanding of a crop and its needs is what the phenomenon of agriculture produced. Sri Lanka provides a good example. Here, irrigated rice production demonstrates a sophisticated system of water collection and control. The rice farming landscape maintained a high biodiversity component, that had co-evolved with the management cycles of the land. The grain itself was not only a source of carbohydrate, but also a source of selected minerals and nutritional compounds, as seen in the variety and composition of the grain. At the last reckoning (1950), there were 500 named varieties, each with different, colour, shape and texture complexes, that were recorded. This diversity was the first victims to the industrialisation of agriculture. Today it is difficult to find more than 20 that remain within the farming communities. In traditional farming systems, farming demanded a knowledge of the environment. A farmer to be successful required an intimate knowledge of the land and the changes that seasonality brought to it. There was always the drive to produce more but productivity of the traditional system, was limited to the optimal biological energy. In terms of energy, it was always internal, the soil, farm livestock and the farmers’ energy to produce food. In Rice production, this system was recorded to have a yield of about 2000 kg per hectare around 1960. With the onset of agricultural development, focused on productivity, this level of yield was seen to be insufficient and an agricultural development programme that focused on crop intensification began. The changes began with the introduction of hybrids and artificial fertiliser. Under this approach, crop plants were bred to have smaller leaf and root biomass and the production was concentrated in harvestable biomass. One problem with this approach is that while it takes a smaller root mass to absorb the fertiliser efficiently, there are no other roots extending outwards, providing root exudates into the soil microbial community to keep the soil alive. The fossil based fertiliser are salts that are taken by the plant to create rapid growth. But such growth is at the expense of its natural defences, bringing about attacks by pests which then have to be controlled using pesticides. It is a downward spiral.

The gain in crop yield, using the industrial approach, is impressive; by 2025 it was at 4700 kgs. But there was a significant cost to attain this level of productivity. In terms of energy, roughly 6.4 MJ of energy is required to produce 1.0 kg of rice all of this energy is fossil based. This change, from traditional agriculture to industrial agriculture meant moving from having no need of fossil energy to provide 1MJ of food, to needing over 6.4 MJ of fossil energy to do the same with industrial agriculture. Further, the toxic nature of many of these inputs have been clearly demonstrated by the decline of the health and well-being of our farming population. Thus, if agricultural productivity keeps on depending on fossil inputs, the decline of public health will become a fact. But, the international agro-industrial complex defends their market by promoting the ‘safety’ of these toxins. Public statements questioning banning of proven toxic compounds claiming them to be ‘benign pesticides like glyphosate ‘suggesting, that they do not cause kidney disease and cancer’. Having been a personal participant in the battle to protect the health of our people by maintaining the ban on Glyphosate, I have witnessed the hypocrisy around the use and safety of such toxins in our agricultural environment, biologists claiming conservation goals, suddenly become cheerleaders for Glyphosate. The insensitivity and cruelty of such people becomes clear, when they state that they would see our farmers suffer and die, with poisoning today, because of a hypothetical possibility of a famine tomorrow. As a defender of such poison stated publicly, “If the hybrids and their chemicals disappear tomorrow, many more people would die of starvation than the number who die of poisoning now. Reality is a hard thing.” What a bitter, tragic, statement. In a more sensitive world, we should strive towards addressing the current tragedy and reducing the number of people dying today from agricultural toxins, while looking for alternatives that can help us maintain productivity without toxins into the future.

Then there is the reality of climate change. It was in 2015 at the Paris COP on biodiversity that the Sri Lankan position paper was presented stating that: “We are aware that the optimum operating temperature of chlorophyll is at 37 deg C. In a warming world where temperatures will soar well above that, food production will be severely impacted. We would request the IPCC to address responses to this phenomenon.”

Up till today, the agricultural establishment has carefully ignored this reality. We needed a strong programme of adaptation where crop seeds would be bred for heat resistance. Why is a heat wave so dangerous? Apart from the heat stress in human and animals, it could exceed the threshold for enzymatic activity. All of agriculture depends on the good growth of plants, all plants rely on their chlorophyll to grow and produce. Chlorophyll is a molecule that functions to an optimum at about 37degrees, above that their performance falls. In heat waves exceeding 39 degrees, plant productivity will be impacted and yields drop. A brutal spring heat wave in Australia, reduced farmers’ yields and demonstrated the oncoming danger. This reality is now with us and we still do not have heat resistance bred into the seeds.

To compound the ambient heat problem, landscape considerations in the current trend is to simplify the cropping area so that machines can work more efficiently. But this style of management just compounds the problem. In an industrial monoculture, all trees and shrubs in a cropping land are removed for efficiency of operation. To change the landscape in this manner is to remove all the cooling elements on it. A large tree, for instance produces the cooling equivalent of 9 room size air conditioners working non-stop, all day. A group of trees around a farm could make a difference to its level of productivity.

It has become obvious that the current approach to agriculture with its total dependency on fossil energy to provide food places us in a path of dangerous dependency, it is also evident that our traditional methods of production also have a limit in productivity. So how do we proceed? One way might be to adopt the approach of a successful neighbour; earlier this year the President of Viet Nam addressed the Sri Lankan Parliament where he stated the way that Viet Nam approached the challenges. They faced their development challenges with a philosophy of ‘Doi Moi’. Doi Moi means a new way of thinking and that the direction of growth ‘must stem from national realities’. Can we build a modern, scientific, agricultural system which is rooted in the reality of our traditions.? Can we wean our agricultural system away from fossil dependency? Can we adapt our agriculture to be resilient to the changing climate ? Can we build modern farmers who can interact with the environment and not just agricultural labourers dependent external input ?

by Dr. Ranil Senanayake

I was taken aback by the response of the well-known academic Uswatte-Aratchi (U-A) to my article “Achievements of the Hunduwa”, which appeared in The Island on 15 March. In his piece, titled “Pot calling the kettle black?” (The Island, 23 April) U-A accuses me of belittling Sri Lanka in just the same way President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) did with his reference to Sri Lanka as a hunduwa. Being an academic of repute, U-A’s comments cannot be ignored and before I proceed further to explain, let me state that I am very sorry if what I stated appeared in any way to be derogatory; my intentions were otherwise.

U-A states, “Most sensible people, even uneducated, judge that the volume of a little drop (of whatever) is smaller than that of a hunduwa; so is weight. When the learned doctor emphatically maintains ‘we are not a hunduwa’ but ‘a little drop in the ocean’, is the pot calling the kettle black or worse?” He implies that my ‘insult’ is worse. Whilst conceding that a drop is smaller than a hunduwa, what baffles me is how an academic overlooked the fact that comparisons should be made based on context. Whereas AKD used hunduwa in the parliament to belittle the country, I used the term ‘little drop’ to highlight our achievements, which are disproportionate to our size. In contrast, AKD used hunduwa to trifle with the country.

“Surely, this little drop in the Indian ocean performed well beyond its size to have gained international recognition way back in history,” I said in my article. This cannot in any way be considered derogatory. In fact, what U-A stated in his article about the achievements of countries, either smaller or with populations smaller than ours, only supports my view that there is no correlation between a country’s size and its achievements.

U-A casts doubt on the assertion that Sri Lanka was once the ‘Granary of the East’; he cites instances of drought and famine. There may have been bad periods, as we are at the mercy of nature, but it does not negate the fact that there were periods of plenty too. Our rulers in days of yore did everything possible to feed the populace by building tanks and extensive irrigation systems. In addition to major works, there were networks of small projects, Uva being referred to as ‘Wellassa’; the land of one hundred thousand paddy fields fed by small tanks. What has the present government done to ease farmers’ burden? Absolutely nothing! Whilst farmers are struggling to eke out a living, rice millers are importing super-luxury vehicles and even helicopters!

I agree with U-A that unfortunately the contribution of the ordinary people is not well recorded in history. This is a universal problem, not limited to Sri Lanka. When one watches some of Prof. Raj Somadeva’s programmes, it becomes clear how ordinary people helped complete gigantic projects. Although there are many documentaries on how the pyramids were built, no one seems interested in exploring how Great Stupas in Anuradhapura were built with millions of bricks.

AKD is doing just the opposite of what he preached whilst in Opposition and does not seem to have any sense of shame. His hunduwa reference, possibly, makes him the only President to have demeaned the country.

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Recent statements from Washington show how global politics is being increasingly framed along civilisational terms. The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has referred to the idea of a shared “Western civilisation,” describing the U.S. and Europe as bound by common history, cultural heritage, and institutional traditions. At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump has amplified comments about countries such as India, China, and Iran in the context of migration and geopolitical competition that reinforce a tendency to interpret global politics in civilisational terms. Taken together, these statements point to a broader shift: global affairs are being interpreted not only through the language of power and interest, but also through civilisational identities.

The appeal of such framing is understandable. It offers a sense of clarity in an era of rapid technological disruption, demographic change, and geopolitical uncertainty. But apparent clarity is not the same as analytical accuracy. Moreover, it is not an entirely new framing either. As early as the 1990s, political scientist Samuel Huntington had argued that global politics would evolve into a “clash of civilisations,” where cultural and religious identities would become the principal fault lines of international relations.

Civilisational explanations can obscure more than they reveal, particularly when they imply that cultural cohesion, rather than institutional adaptability, is the primary source of national strength. A historical record of the modem West suggests otherwise.

A look at history

Much of the West’s post-Cold War dynamism has rested not on homogeneity, but on openness — to talent, ideas, capital, and global competitive pressures. Its advantage has been institutional: the capacity to absorb diversity and convert it into innovation within rules-based systems.

Nowhere is this more evident than in today’s innovation economy. AI, in particular, has become the defining frontier of global competition, shaped by deeply international talent flows and research ecosystems. Companies such as Microsoft, Open Al, and NVIDIA exemplify systems in which breakthroughs depend on globally sourced expertise, cross-border collaboration, and the ability to attract the most capable minds regardless of origin.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored this complementary reality: innovation now operates through globally distributed production systems. Rapid vaccine development and distribution, by firms such as Modema and AstraZeneca, depended on international research networks and global manufacturing ecosystems. In the case of AstraZeneca, large-scale production through partnerships such as that with the Serum Institute of India illustrated how innovation and industrial capacity now operate across borders.

This is not an argument against immigration control. Immigration must be governed effectively, and civic norms must be upheld. But managing diversity is fundamentally different from retreating from it.

In an era of intensifying geopolitical competition, openness remains a critical strategic asset. The West’s advantage lies not only in military alliances or economic scale, but in institutional resilience and its capacity to attract, integrate, and retain talent. Civilisational framing, by contrast, risks misdiagnosing this advantage —privileging identity over capability and boundaries over performance. Demographic realities reinforce this point. Many advanced economies face ageing populations. In this context, immigration is not simply a cultural or political issue, but an economic necessity.

Without sustained inflows of sldlled labour and human capital, growth slows, fiscal pressures increase, and innovation ecosystems weaken.

Openness as an advantage

The defining challenges of the 21st century —including AI governance and climate change —further highlight the limits of civilisational thinking. These are problems that cannot be addressed within cultural silos. Against this backdrop, framing global politics in terms of civilisational hierarchy carries risks. It encourages a narrowing of identity at precisely the moment when cooperation and adaptability are essential.

The question, therefore, is not whether identity matters. It dearly does. Societies require shared norms, institutional trust, and continuity. The more important question is whether democracies can manage change without losing confidence in the openness that has sustained their development. The strength of the West has historically rested on its ability to combine stability with adaptation — to absorb new influences while preserving core principles such as the rule of law, individual liberty, and accountable governance.

Therefore, the policy challenge ahead is not to retreat into notions of cultural purity, but to govern openness with clarity and purpose. This requires strengthening integration frameworks and reinforcing institutional trust. It also requires recognising that engagement with other civilisational spaces is not a concession, but a necessity in a globally interconnected world.

In a world of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, it may be tempting to define strength in narrower terms. But doing so risks undertnining one of the West’s most important strategic assets. Openness — disciplined, governed, and anchored in strong institutions — is not a vulnerability. It is a source of sustained advantage.

(Milinda Moragoda –Former Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister, diplomat and the Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, a strategic affairs think tank. The Hindu – 08, May 2026)

By Milinda Moragoda