Winners and losers

Thursday 25th November, 2021

The private sector has been allowed to import agrochemicals with effect from yesterday. Sri Lankan farmers, who are celebrating the success of their protest campaign, should be thankful to their Indian counterparts who brought the mighty Modi government to its knees after a year-long struggle. The Indian farmers’ victory gave a scare to the Sri Lankan government, and boosted the morale of the farming community, here, protesting against the current fertiliser shortage.

The government has been left with egg on its face, once again. There seems to be no end to its humiliating policy reversals. It is doubtful whether anyone takes gazette notifications announcing government decisions seriously. But the government has been able to save a lot of foreign exchange owing to its agrochemical ban; now, farmers will have to pay for synthetic fertiliser.

Faced with a huge foreign exchange crisis, the government could not pay for fertiliser imports, but at the same time, it could not scrap the fertiliser subsidy for fear of the political fallout of such a course of action. It imposed a blanket ban on agrochemicals, and farmers found themselves in such a desperate situation that they said they were even willing to pay for chemical fertilisers and demanded that the ban on agrochemicals be lifted. The government has lifted the ban and farmers will have to buy fertilisers. They will not have the fertilisers of their choice under the government subsidy scheme; they will get only organic fertiliser by way of state assistance. This must be a huge relief for the government in the dollar saving mode.

Meanwhile, the main reason given by the government for banning agrochemicals was that they were harmful to humans and the environment. It said it had acted out of its concern for people’s health and the environment. Having said so and striven to go ahead with its organic fertiliser drive, come hell or high water, how would the government justify its decision to allow ‘harmful’ agrochemicals to be imported again?

Sirisena vs Aluthgamage

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, MP, has raked Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage over the coals for the mess in the agriculture sector. He says the minister must be held accountable for the fertiliser fiasco, which, he says, has taken a heavy toll on agriculture. There is no love lost between them, and they have been taking swipes at each other for the past several weeks. Protesting farmers also burnt many effigies of Aluthgamage. Attacks on the Agriculture Minister may warm the cockles of many a heart, but how fair is it to single him out for criticism?

The organic fertiliser project is President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s brainchild, and Aluthgamage was only implementing it. True, he cannot absolve himself of the responsibility for the mess as the Agriculture Minister, but why don’t the critics of the failed fertiliser experiment criticise the President? The President himself has said on numerous occasions that the organic fertiliser drive is one of his promises to the people and is in keeping with his election manifesto.

Is it that Sirisena and others lack the courage to blame the President, and therefore have turned on a soft target?

Now that Sirisena is out for his scalp, Aluthgamage can call for the full implementation of the recommendations of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), which probed the Easter Sunday carnage (2019). The PCoI has recommended criminal proceedings against Sirisena for his serious lapses as the President and Defence Minister at the time. Several others named in the PCoI report have been indicted, and among them are ex-IGP Pujith Jayasundera and ex-Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando.