Let’s try pineapple remedy

This is a picture of a pineapple bought from a supermarket in the UK. It was imported from Costa Rica. Your readers might be thinking why can’t Sri Lanka export pineapples or other fruits to the UK as we can grow pineapples and other fruits easily in Sri Lanka. Absolutely. We can. Maybe not pineapples but other plant products. However, we must guard against two things. Environmental degradation and exploitation. I will use the example of this pineapple to show how this can and does happen. The attached letter illustrates the first danger.

“Hi,

I’m Isabel – I live in Cipreses, a small town in Costa Rica. I wrote this email in Spanish, and Ekō helped me translate it. I’m writing because my community’s water is contaminated with a carcinogenic pesticide. We know how to fix it, but we need help.

The chemical is called chlorothalonil and it’s banned in 32 countries, but instead of taking it off the market, European companies like Syngenta are just selling it to countries in the Global South like Costa Rica.

For 9 years now, I’ve been fighting with other women in Cipreses to get it banned, and we’re making progress on what used to feel impossible: Costa Rica’s constitutional court has given the executive branch a deadline of six months to ban chlorothalonil!

But the ministers in charge could delay the ban if they don’t feel pressure – that’s why we created this petition and need as many people as possible to see and support it. Then we’ll work with Ekō to take all the signatures straight to the ministers. Can you help us get this done?

Tell the government of Costa Rica: ban this carcinogenic pesticide

These last years have been very tough on my community. Besides never having enough water, my daughter Fiorella had polyps at 16 and has now lost her sense of smell and taste. One of my neighbours has tongue cancer, and several young people have been diagnosed with stomach cancer. It’s alarming that so many people are getting sick in such a small place. And ever since scientists confirmed the water is contaminated, the government has told us not to drink the tap water at all.

And to make it all worse, some locals with the support of the pesticide lobby regularly harass, intimidate and threaten us with death because of our activism.

As hard as it is, as hard as it’s been, we won’t give up. Because it isn’t just Cipreses: we already know other springs are contaminated – in areas where 80% of Costa Rica’s vegetables are grown – and there could be many more. We feel we can’t let Syngenta use countries like ours – from Latin America to Africa – as dumping grounds for chemicals they can’t legally sell in Europe!

This is why the constitutional court ruled that chlorothalonil should be banned. They also made recommendations to ensure that our local farmers can still make a living and receive support for transitioning to alternatives. There will even be financial incentives to produce new alternatives.

So there’s no reason not to do this, and we’re so close to winning. But now it all depends on how much pressure our leaders feel. If every person receiving this email signs the petition and shares it, we could win in Costa Rica and then fight for a domino effect to ban chlorothalonil in all of Latin America – will you join us?

Tell the government of Costa Rica: Ban chlorothalonil

From Cipreses, we thank all the people who are part of Ekō for everything they do to support communities like ours and to build a better world for everyone.

With much love,

Isabel, Ana María, Fabián and Jordan in Cipreses “

The second danger is exploitation. The pineapple was bought for 95 pence in the UK. At an exchange rate of Rs 350 for a British pound it works at about Rs 330 in Sri Lankan currency. As this particular pineapple weighed 1.4 kg the cost of a kilo in the UK is Rs 236 in Sri Lankan currency. To have grown it in Costa Rica, imported to the UK, bought by the supermarket and sold for Rs 236 per kilo at a profit, how much can we think the farmer in Costa Rica would have got per kilo of pineapple grown by him? Similarly, the price of a kg of imported banana in the UK is about 80 pence or Rs 280. Once again how much will the farmer get per kilo?

Economists and politicians have a solution to this problem. Grow the pineapple and banana in large extents for export. Introduce economy of scale to bring down the cost of production. Grow the fruits in large acreages. If we don’t have enough land, clear the forests. Don’t let other plants compete with the pineapple or banana. Grow them as monocrops. Introduce chemical fertiliser to increase yields. That’s the way to do it. If we don’t have enough funds to do so, get foreign direct investment.

In this way, there will be no poor farmers. There will be agricultural workers. Similar to industrial workers. They will get a handsome salary. They don’t have to worry about planting material, fertiliser, watering, selling the products or any such thing.

Is this what we want? Has this system worked in Sri Lanka or elsewhere? Particularly has the system helped the workers? Or the environment or bio-diversity?

Fortunately, there is another way. Sri Lanka is particularly suited for the alternative strategy. Grow the products in small plots but in as many places as possible. Grow them as part of growing other plants for food or other purpose, not as mono cultures. Grow them around the “farmers’” dwelling”. Anyone and everyone including Samurdhi recipients with physical ability and time can grow as much as he/she can. Not necessarily by agricultural workers only. There will be no need to “go to work”. There will no need to “leave of absence from work” to attend a friend’s wedding or go on pilgrimage.

Pie in the sky? Not at all. This is what is done by tea smallholders. Except that they don’t grow food or as much as they should. And unfortunately, not organically either and therefore we have tremendous loss of bio-diversity. This is also what the spice growers do as well. Given the wisdom and courage, Sri Lanka can be a prosperous country by expanding and improving what the tea small holders and spice growers successfully do at present.

Lal Jayasinghe

laljayasinghe@hotmail.com