Sound policies a prerequisite for agriculture development –Prof. Marambe

By Ifham Nizam

Continued from last Thursday

The Island:  How do you view
the Green Climate Fund?

Prof: The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is an international climate financing mechanism, and is a main implementing entity for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with a predicted resource of USD 100 billion a year. The GCF operates to transfer finances from the developed countries to the developing countries, and to assist developing countries in their adaptation to climate change and in mitigating actions. Currently, in U.S. dollar terms, the GCF spends one-third on adaptation and two-thirds on mitigation. Sri Lanka considers GCF as an important vehicle for the implementation of national climate action plans and to achieve the targets of UNFCCC and Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Two GCF-funded projects in Sri Lanka have been implemented as of 31st March 2020 with the GCF contribution of USD 77.9 million out of a total project value of USD 101.1 million. Both projects are under climate adaptation category. The Government of Sri Lanka has designated the Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Resources as its National Designated Authority (NDA) to the GCF. The first NDA Readiness and Support Program was implemented in Sri Lanka for the period 2019-2020 with total GCF support to the value of USD 920,000. Despite the above, the GCF is currently facing a problem to support its overall financial targets. The USA has decided to pull out as a contributor to the GCF. Further, the other developed countries have failed to increase the amount of money pledged to the GCF, to mitigate the refusal of USA to provide green finance.   

The Island: When it comes to agricultural practices…are we on the right track?

Prof: Agriculture in Sri Lanka has evolved over the years. The Sri Lankan version of Green Revolution has paid its dividends, especially in the case of the main staple, starting from the development and adoption of famous rice variety H4 in 1958. We now cultivate more than 98% of the paddy land extent using new high yielding varieties. Investments on research and development leading to technological packages have made significant progress. For example, the recommendations made by the Department of Agriculture (DOA) on food crops have been heavily adopted by the farming community in Sri Lanka. High yielding crops always demand more inputs – a natural phenomenon. With the efforts to feed slow but steadily-growing population, new and less-labour intensive agricultural practices have replaced the traditional, more labour-consuming practices. For example, machinery has heavily replaced labour in the front-end (land preparation – use of tractors) and tail-end (harvesting – use of combined harvesters) of paddy. Further, back-breaking weed control efforts using labour has been replaced with the use of herbicides. Commercially available chemical fertilizers have replaced the requirement of large quantities (in many tons per hectare) of organic matter to supply the needed amount of nutrients for the growth of crops leading to richer harvests. Taking paddy as an example, since 1940 where we imported 60% of our rice requirement to feed about 6 million population, Sri Lanka is now self-sufficient in rice thanks to efforts made by scientists as well as heavy adoption rate of technologies by farming community. We have shifted from traditional varieties to new high yielding varieties, use of less labour-intensive practices resulting in high labour productivity and efficiency in agricultural practices, and new fertilizer recommendation. As for science, we have always being in the correct path in terms of food crop production.

However, we were focusing more on quantity than quality. The society is now more conscious on quality aspects and the process in on. The main issue of the agricultural practices has been the misuse of agricultural inputs by practitioners, deviating from the recommendations of the DOA or the responsible entities that make such recommendations. This has been a major problem over the years, which no doubt has had a negative impact on the overall environment.

Fertilizer subsidies granted since 1962 at various levels and with different objectives have made the farming community to use this important input as they wish. The mode of provision of such input subsidy requires a re-visit, understanding the actual requirement, with proper coordination among agencies within the Ministries responsible for the subject of agriculture. More importantly, provision of free-fertilizer is not a request of the majority of the practitioners in agriculture in Sri Lanka. Instead of paying more attention for providing free agricultural inputs such as fertilizer by spending a colossal amount of foreign exchange, timely availability of the inputs at an affordable price is more important. Such an action would ensure higher agricultural productivity. In the case of food crop production, we still import a lot to fulfill our food requirement. However, the progress in terms of productivity of many crops such as rice, maize, chilli, etc. (I do agree that there are many other issues to be solved), has been the key for agricultural development. Such improvement mainly came from our own breeding programmes, thanks to our own scientists, and the private sector that got down technology (micro irrigation to enhance water use efficiency, green houses for continuous production of high value crops, etc.) from elsewhere to enhance productivity and profitability of agricultural enterprises. The technologies are popularized and adopted based on recommendations of the DOA. Research outputs to make such technologies productive, from the Universities and private sector themselves, are commendable under the Sri Lankan scenario.

The extension services have also provided a strong support ensuring the adoption of technologies. Importing dairy cattle or semen seem to have been the key government intervention in the past to improve dairy industry in the country. No or minimum effort has been made to improve fodder production and fodder quality, except the Department of Agriculture trying its level best to provide maize requirement of the animal Industry (mainly poultry). Even when dairy cattle is imported, the rearing of such animals should be done in an appropriate climate for the animal breed. The people involved in rearing imported cattle, should be aware of the requirement of the animal. If better growth and yield is the target, then adequate nourishment, including drinking water is a must. We cannot expect higher yields through/from a malnourished animal. Environmental pollution, such as eutrophication, has been one of the key negative impacts of misuse or overuse of agricultural inputs, especially fertilizers in agricultural ecosystems. Minimum efforts made to conserve soil especially in the sloping lands and in the dry zone is still an issue to be solved. The costs involved in adopting remedial measures is high, but we see the efforts being made in the Central Highland of Sri Lanka. Organic agriculture has been proposed as an alternative to the famous “chemical” fertilizer, however, comes at the cost of losing productivity, absence of large quantities required to support crop growth, transport issues, and at the end, national food security.

The State Department of Agriculture promotes Integrated Plant Nutrient System (IPNS), Integrated Pest Management (IPM), etc., to ensure rational use of inputs. Further, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are been recommended for many crops to minimize the negative impacts of current agricultural operations on the environment and to ensure sustainable production system in agriculture at all levels. There is no doubt that we need to have a coordinated effort to re-orient the overall agricultural production to make it more environmentally-friendly. All in all, the current agricultural practices, based on the way the recommended technologies are used, have created issues in the natural and agricultural ecosystems in the country. The popular ‘ban’ theory adopted in the past and now for many imports is not the way out. Making judicious use of such productive technologies with sound policies and strategic interventions with the involvement of all stakeholders will take us towards the ultimate goal of agricultural prosperity.

The Island: What are your recommendations to the government?

Prof: The answer is simple as follows

I have trust in science and scientific evidence, make evidence-based decisions, have confidence in the scientists and researchers in the state system and academia in the field of agriculture – those without biased political motive (identification of such people will be a difficult task in some cases), do not get carried away by myths and fancies of individuals and groups (e.g. fallacies such Sri Lanka is the country that use the highest amounts of fertilizer for agriculture  in South Asia or the world), move towards carefully designed private-public-producer partnerships, make novel technologies available to practitioners at affordable prices, promote organic farming based on its feasibility in meeting national food (and nutrition) security and mainly as a means of export-oriented production based on demand, and adopt a steady and sound policy on agriculture (e.g. the Overarching Agriculture Policy developed by the Department of National Planning with support of large groups of scientists, academia, researchers, administrators, community-based agencies, farmers at all levels including national and provincial set ups).

I fervently hope that this is the way out in the expected new normal during the post-pandemic period.

UNDP’s, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF ) has contributed to a number of Small Grants Programme, in Sri Lanka, with the financial assistance to climate change adaptation.

Under this initiative, a number of programmes were conducted in the Knuckles region.

Concuded