(February 26, 2010) Pineapple cultivators in the Gampaha District expressed concern about the heavy losses incurred by them due to the increasing production costs and for want of a profitable market for their produce.
They pointed out that the increasing prices of fertilizer and agro chemicals seriously affected them. A pineapple cultivator of Rathupaswala, Wimal Wickramarachchi stressed the need to provide a fertiliser subsidy to the pineapple cultivators as in the case of paddy cultivators. “I took to pineapple cultivation a few years ago in a small scale.
Today I have 50 acres of pineapple cultivation at Giriulla, 40 acres at Katupotha and 15 acres at Ganemulla. However, I am facing hardship for want of a market for our produce. The sharp decline of prices causes us heavy losses during the harvesting season. The government or the private sector must introduce pineapple based industries to provide a market for the produce.
The small scale cultivators should receive a fertiliser subsidy from the government. It is sad that we have been left to the mercy of the middleman.”
Meanwhile, the traders pointed out that it was with great difficulty that they earned a marginal profit from pineapple cultivation.
“We do not have storage facilities to preserve pineapple for a long time. Unless we dispose of our stock in a couple of days, we would be compelled to discard a large parentage of it as rotten fruits. Our customers are mostly ordinary consumers,” one of the traders said.
The pineapple cultivators requested the government to look into their predicament and provide them adequate facilities.
by Sarath Fernando
We feel that it is useful to attempt a widely participated process of “People’s Organisations” intervening in the political campaigns related to the elections in the country. Elections are an occasion when economic, social and other policies are discussed among people and commitments are made by the candidates and political parties contesting elections.
There are a large number of organisations in the country that are representing the interests of workers in public and private sectors, farmers and the landless people, rural and urban poor, women, fisher people, plantation workers, youth, the unemployed, those affected by adverse policies and programmes carried out by governments and by the private sector.
These people’s organisations have had to struggle continuously to get their interests taken care of and to prevent policies and programmes that affect them adversely. There have been constant struggles against various policies that have made the people economically poorer and democratically, politically, oppressed. There have been struggles to protect people’s rights to health, education, social welfare, poverty alleviation, right to land, water and the forests.
Also struggles to protect environment and conservation of natural resources and rights to freedom of speech and democracy etc., Struggles against discrimination against women and the minority communities.
What is common to all these struggles is that they try to protect the interests of the poor and the oppressed against the agenda of the national and international capital and politically dominant forces
These struggles have become extremely important globally too since the big capital and leaders of big countries and international institutions such as the G-8, WB and IMF have proved unable to solve the problems of feeding the hungry, reducing poverty, preventing climate disasters and protecting peace. Experiences in Sri Lanka of youth uprisings and inter ethnic conflicts have shown the importance of reducing social disparities and other form of discrimination to prevent political violence and corruption.
The challenge before the people’s organisations for social, economic, political justice and environmental justice is to see if all these forces can unite in formulating a joint manifesto that expresses the common aspirations of all oppressed people to push forward their agenda before elections, during elections, and after elections.
As a starting point in setting up such an agenda we wish to put forward a set of proposals that briefly outlines the interests of all these oppressed groups which can be worked upon towards formulating a common set of proposals or demands. A draft illustration is given below,
Approval and implementation of labour laws that ensure, decent wages, working conditions, security of employment to ensure dignity and a worthwhile standard of living for all, rights of workers to organized action through trade unions.
Acceptance and implementation of an ecological agricultural policy, based on the principles of food sovereignty ( which ensures the right of farmers to decide on what food to be produced and consumed, how they are to be produced, where, and marketed at what prices and what technologies to be utilized ) that would contribute to the recovery of the regenerative ability of nature and natural resources and ensuring that the leaders of such an agriculture, the small and marginal farmers should have ownership of and control over agricultural plans, land, water, seeds and markets. Such a process should give priority to domestic production and consumption of natural, healthy food.
The ownership and control of the small scale fisher people over the basis of their livelihoods, the sea, the beaches and the inland water resources and to ensure proper marketing facilities to be affordable to the fisher people as well as the poorer consumers in the country. The fisheries policy should be a policy of sustainable fisheries that protects the fishing resources in the country. The displacement of fisher people from the beaches as well as from access to the sea and other fisheries resources for expansion of tourism and large scale industrial fishing should be prevented and the use of destructive fishing gear and techniques should be stopped.
The plantation workers should be given worthwhile wages and proper working conditions and also their right to decent housing, health, education and opportunities for social upliftment. They should be given land and food producing possibilities to improve their situation of food and nutrition and earn additional incomes. This is particularly necessary for the large number of fairly educated, but unemployed, plantation youth.
Their being granted the right to own land in their hill country living areas with
proper guidance and assistance in ecological and regenerative agriculture and
agro forestry could help in developing proper conservation and regeneration of
agriculture that would benefit the rest of the country too, by preventing erosion, pollution, floods, droughts and earth slips too. This is the way in which their dignity as proper citizens of Sri Lanka could be restored.
While taking measures to ensure that women in society enjoy equal status and dignity in the social and political life in the country, by removing the various types of discrimination that exist against women in society, political life and also in family life, it is necessary to eliminate the pattern of using women as cheap subservient labour in employment, particularly in foreign employment, in garment industries, various services, in plantations and in agriculture.
Women’s ability and potential in making a valuable, creative contribution in a process of sustainable development, including in planning, should be recognized and established.
The tremendous potential that the youth have in contributing to an approach to a development process that depends on the restoration of nature’s ability to regenerate itself should be recognized. Such an approach has the possibility of providing the youth with dignified professions and a life of satisfaction.
This is one way in which the very large numbers of young people migrating to cities and as unemployed poor could be solved. The educational system and the training processes in the country should be reoriented to see that the necessary knowledge and skills for such a profession is given to them. The potential for regeneration of land and agriculture has the potential to provide the youth, as agents of transformation attractive remunerations and a dignified role in society.
Tamils and Muslims in the country should be given due respect and the rights to use their culture and language and proper representation in the political systems. As is done in other parts of the country, the people in the Northern and Eastern Provinces should be given the right to land in their own territories and guidance and assistance to utilize this land and natural resources in a regenerative manner. Thus their right to their land and its fertility, development and productivity could be improved and also the possibility of these people using the benefits of their productivity.
The health policies and the health services in the country should be, improved in a way that all people, the rich as well as the poor could enjoy good health and services. Community health services should be improved. Proper ecological and environmental agriculture should be propagated to prevent diseases and the indigenous and natural ways of life and consumption should be propagated to promote healthy ways of living.
Democracy is the right of people to plan their ways of life. Suitable processes to ensure this right should be adopted in from the lower village levels, the regional councils levels, provincial levels as well as at national level. There should be mechanisms to ensure that implementation of such plans could be ensured and monitored by the people.
Similar proposals should be formulated in relation to Media and right to express views
Nature and environment
Culture and art etc.
This is just a sample of the type of brief proposals that can be included in a statement by the people’s organisations. These could be improved, adjusted or added on through discussion. We would like to have your suggestions, comments and additions in advance of a meeting of different sectors that we will convene soon to get agreement on these proposals.
Since detailed work and formulations have been done by people’s organisations in many sectors, they could be summarized and put together to work out a “People’s Manifesto” later.
(February 20, 2009) Sri Lanka government has reduced the import tax of palm oil from Rs. 60 to Rs. 35 per kilo since February 18, 2009.
A government spokesman said that this step was taken especially to redress the desiccated coconut manufacturers who had been stuck by the escalated coconut price.
With this move, the government also expects the price of coconut oil also decline.
However, the coconut industry of the country will be affected with this move, some analysts say. The government earlier imposed heavy taxes on palm oil claiming that they were to save the industry.
(February 13, 2009) The restricted import of maize has boomeranged on the local maize growers, chicken farms and the consumers. There is no doubt a shortage of chicken in the country which may continue till after the Sinhala and Hindu New Year in April. Even the large Super Markets like Cargills Food City and Arpico reported of a shortage of supplies. The controlled price for a kilo of chicken is Rs. 320, but in the open market it's priced at Rs. 460.
The President of the Poultry Producers Association, Dr. D. D. Wanasinghe, told The Island yesterday that according to government statistics, there were 75,000 families involved in poultry farming in addition to about 100,000 people who are involved in the industry.
"One million people are dependent on the poultry industry, which is mostly a self employment scheme. According to our information, 25 to 30 per cent of poultry farmers have closed shop. A majority of there are small scale farmers," said Dr. Wanasinghe.
He said that big timers in the business like Bairaha, Prima, Maxies, CIC, Pussella, etc., who have made large investments with some employing about 700 people are "just floating". He further said that there has been no growth in the industry since 2005 and since 2007, there is a backward trend in the poultry industry.
Dr. Wanasinghe told The Island that the maximum retail price of Rs. 320 a kilo of chicken, was set in July 2008 and that there was a clause to state that this price will remain for one year.
"From 2008, the cost of production has increased in leaps and bounds. In December last year (2009), we requested for a revision in the price and suggested Rs. 367. We gave all the necessary details to the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA).
We were called for a discussion on this matter on January 29. The (CAA) never discussed the cost of production. They then wrote to us two days later and refused our request for a price increase to Rs. 367", said a disgruntled Dr. Wanasinghe.
He further told The Island that 50 per cent of the poultry feed was maize, which was Rs. 37 a kilo, but sold at Rs. 57 in December last year (2009). He said: Import of maize was banned, but middlemen hoarded it and kept on increasing the prices.
"The off season for maize harvesting is from September 2009 to end February this year. We need 40,000 metric tons, but finally the authorities allowed only 20,000 metric tons of maize to be imported. In addition to the usual Cess and VAT, they added an extra import duty of 15 per cent of CIF. An imported kilo of maize is Rs. 52 to Rs. 55, while the local middlemen charge Rs. 57 a kilo. The quality of the imported maize too is poor", said Dr. Wanasinghe.
He further said that both the CAA and Ministry of Livestock Development have ignored the requests made by the Poultry Produces Association with the CAA encouraging "wrong practice".
(February 12, 2009) A pest identified as Tristrasa is destroying orange cultivations in Bibile much to the anxiety of the residents of the area who depend on this main traditional crop that had been their main source of income for centuries. They said several other pests caused by viruses and fungus affected the orange cultivation after the heavy rains recently experienced in the area. Statistically more than 3000 acres of orange cultivation in the Moneragala district had been affected by pests. The farmers are alarmed that the orange cultivation in the district would be wiped out if the pest was not brought under control immediately. The cultivators who reap a bumper harvest in April and May every year are perturbed that the poor yield this year would result in heavy losses. Meanwhile, Manager of the District Agrarian Training Centre, Jinasena Harischandra said the orange cultivation in Bibile and several other areas in the Moneragala district were affected by fungus and pests after the monsoonal rains.
‘Bibile Sweet’, is the most popular variety unique to the area. However, it is a matter of concern that black spots caused by a fungus affected the fruits on the verge of harvest. Thousands of rotten oranges are found under the trees. The trees should be exposed to the sun to prevent the spread of the pest. Trees in shady gardens are more susceptible to the pest. The affected trees should be pruned and the rotten fruits destroyed. Pesticides should be applied when the trees are flowering to minimize the affect of the fungus,” an official said.
(February 05, 2009) Sri Lanka Ministry of Agriculture Development and Peasant Services says that the state will purchase 140,000 metric tons of paddy in the Maha season. A cabinet paper has been submitted to allocate Rs. 4060 million in this purpose, a spokesman of the Ministry said.
The harvesting of the Maha season is to begin by the end of this month.
The state expects to purchase 50,000 metric tons from Polonnaruwa district where the Minister of Agriculture Development and Peasant Services Maithripala Sirisena's family members have big rice processing and marketing business. From Anuradhapura district and the Eastern Provinces 30,000 metric tons will be purchased while 15,000 metric tons each will be purchased from Northwestern and Southern Provinces.
The government registered price for a kilo of paddy this year is Rs. 28 for Nadu rice and Rs. 30 for Samba rice. Currently, the price of a kilo of Nadu rice is around Rs. 60 in the market and a kilo of Samba rice is around Rs. 85.
Paddy processed by the state is usually sold to the private sector later to be processed and issued to the market. A portion is kept as a buffer stock. State paddy purchasing is a mechanism aimed at regulating the market prices in harvesting times so that the farmers can have a reasonable price.
(February 03, 2009) The Ministry of Social Security and Social Welfare data points out that island wide there are 350,000 recipients of social security payments to the poor.
Deputy Minister of Social Services, Lionel Premasiri says that these payments are for no income earners and they will be increased up to Rs.1,000 by budget.
These people belong to the category of people affected by extreme poverty. The payments made by the state for them are adequate to feed them a few meals. Most of them are victims of malnutrition and many other deceases.
(January 31, 2009) Agrarian analysts suspect that a wild paddy strain is rapidly spreading paddy seeds that have allegedly been mixed with seed paddy distributed to farmers by state authorities. Compounding the issue, no programme has been envisaged to tackle this problem.
Agrarian analysts point out that a type of ‘wild paddy’ which has begun to spread in many areas of the country is reponsible for reducing the paddy harvest in the country.
“Wild plants directly and indirectly harm cultivation. The life cycle of some of the insects found in paddy fields are directly connected to these wild plants,” says Prof. Buddhi Marambe, Dean of the faculty of Agriculture of the University of Peradeniya.
They observed a change in paddy cultivation in 1998, where paddy seeds fell as soon as the paddy plant matured. Prof. Buddhi Marambe and Dr. Lakshman Amarasinghe of the Ministry of Agriculture continued studies on the problem and they found that there was no difference between this wild paddy strain and the Oryza Sativa paddy strain which is used by in Sri Lanka.
The wild paddy seed has a long or short ‘attachment’ at the end of it. However, it is difficult to recognize it from the ‘attachment’ because most old paddy types too bear the same feature.
Dr. Lakshman Amarasingha advised paddy farmers to leave the paddy field for two or three weeks after preparing it for cultivation so that the wild paddy plants would come up during that time. Once the wild paddy plants have come up, farmers could destroy them with a weedicide. Using this method wild paddy plants were eradicated in 1999 but during 2000,2001 years the problem came up again. The issue has risen its head again causing immense problems to farmers. -Saliya Kumara Gunasekara (Lakbima News)
This article addresses the question of what the tasks ahead are of the 'leftists', the 'socialists' in the country, whoever they are, in the face of the forthcoming Presidential elections. The majority of people in the country are economically poor. We have a country rich in natural resources, but past economic policies have not provided for the basic needs of the poor majority but have paved the way for a widening gap between rich and poor. The question is what is to be done and what is the task or indeed the responsibility of the left in this context?
1.INTRODUCTION: LESSONS OF PAST EXPERIENCES
Sri Lanka is a country that has demonstrated clearly that "capitalism" can not solve the problems of the people and those of the country in any way. The attempts made over the last 60 years and particularly those of the last 31 years (since 1977) to attract external capital to achieve faster economic growth, which was expected to trickle down and reduce poverty did not work. They are very unlikely to work in the future too. The only thing that has been achieved is to pave the way for the growth of a limited number of very rich people. There has been no trickle down at all. All that has happened is a process of compelling the poor to subsidize the rich.
During the last 32 years Sri Lanka has become one of the most undemocratic countries, a country with one of the highest income and social disparities, one of the countries with the sharpest growth in rural poverty (as identified by the Study of “State of the World’s Rural Poverty” by IFAD in 1993 or so), one of the most violent countries with the largest rates of involuntary disappearances, as reported by the UN Committee for involuntary disappearances in 1991, and with one of the highest rates of suicide
In this process the potential that Sri Lanka had and still has to solve the serious problems faced by the poorer sections of society and contribute towards an economy that is equitable and sustainable has been destroyed. Its potential to form a political system that respects the sovereignty of the people has been drastically weakened. This period has also proved the failure of private capital to lead a suitable process of development.
These failures have been admitted by the WB and IMF in many of their documents. The leader of the UNP responsible for introducing the more intense process of capitalist development has admitted this in his most recent writing on the “Future Challenges”(Anagatha Abhiyoga), written as a policy declaration for the current Presidential election campaign. Thus, the political leaders who won the subsequent elections such as Chandrika Bandaranayake and Mahinda Rajapakse had to declare policies opposed to the capitalist agenda that had been formulated by J.R. Jayawardane (open market policies) and by Chandrika and Ranil (the Regaining of Sri Lanka policies) in order to win elections. The promise to dissolve the Presidential system which was introduced as the main mechanism of achieving the required “dictatorial” political power is an admission of this failure.
A strategy of the poor to overcome their poverty cannot depend on external capital whether local or international. Whoever invests such capital will have the interest of earning more capital and not of allowing this capital to be distributed or "trickled down" to reduce poverty. Lenders use the process to get what they want. Thus the sovereignty of the people is taken away and even the elected representatives have very little opportunity of disagreeing with them. Therefore, they have to be undemocratic.
(Ref: MONLAR document “Compelling the poor to subsidize the rich” – An analysis of regaining Sri Lanka strategy proposed by Government and WB in 2003)
The last 32 years of such dependence on borrowed capital has clearly shown
that what was wanted was the creation of cheaper and more subservient labour; displacement of the poorer sections of society from access to natural resources such as land, water, ecology, forest, and the sea and the benefits of environment; more building of infrastructure needed to facilitate the exploitation of resources of nature and of human beings. Thus, we see that encouraging rural small holders to sell their land, pushing fisher people away from the beaches and away from access to sea and fishing resources, pushing rural and urban women to leave their homes, villages and families to sell themselves as cheap labour, compelling the workers to lose their labour rights and job security and the minority communities to become internal and external IDPs losing their rights to villages and livelihoods. Taking away the right of people to have free access to water has all been in the agenda of capital.
The political systems are adjusted accordingly with powers concentrated in the hands of dictatorial regimes, such as the executive presidential system, and more power of decision making in the hands of private capital.
The left parties have understood this and have tried to acquire political power to introduce changes. Since the existing political systems have not allowed such space or possibility they have had to extend their strength to some capitalist leaderships, compromising their principles or have had to rebel. Thus, it is necessary to think of a strategy that can be initiated even before they have political power in their hands.
Present world situations and the situation in Sri Lanka make it necessary to think of civil society processes, or processes launched by people's movements to resist these trends and to solve some of the most serious problems, rather than counting on the possibility of present authorities whether at national or global level giving space to such solutions.
This does not mean that people should not be struggling to influence changes and to prevent processes that go against their interests and even struggle to capture political power. However, elections have generally served the purpose of getting the poor majorities to give legitimacy to leaders, political parties and programmes that further worsens their condition and makes it even more difficult to work out their strategies for survival.
It is due to these situations that the poor and the oppressed masses of people have had to launch out on struggles outside the electoral political systems and to get involved even in armed rebellion. Having pushed the poor and oppressed people to such rebellion, they are branded terrorists and are suppressed in the name of protecting democracy “saving the country”.
Whether such a strategy today can win the next Presidential election and who represents such a strategy is another matter. The issue of who should be voted for is an issue that should be considered separately and looked upon with other logic.
Therefore, we need to present ordinary people, the majority of whom are poor, with a strategy that addresses their needs directly. It must be economically sound, address social justice, achieve economic sustainability, and deliver true democracy that respects sovereignty of the people and prevents political violence. It should allow ordinary people to take over the agenda of formulating economic policies and political systems that affect them. Poor people have a right to develop their own vision and work out their own strategies, and any moment of intense political discussion and debate such as times of elections should be utilized to help the poor masses of people to think on their own and work out political strategies from their own point of view and from their own interests. The key question then is what the elements of such a strategy should be.
2.ELEMENTS OF A STRATEGY AND PROGRAMME OF THE POOR
2.1 Meeting essential needs first
The poor must have a vision of a process that can help them meet their most essential needs first, and then think of extending and building upon such a process to meet other needs. Today in Sri Lanka and the rest of the world the essential need of the poor is to solve the problem of hunger. Then address health, housing, education, livelihoods and culture. Issues arising from modernization - improving their skills and understanding, skills of organization and self-government, needs of advancement and entertainment and so on – must then be addressed.
The most basic need is to guarantee the opportunity to use people’s creative potential, and this can begin now. For instance, people who do not have money to buy their essential needs of food and healthcare look into ways in which they could get them from nature at no cost.
Dr. Vandana Shiva identifies three different economies in human history, the “economy of nature”, “economy of the people” (or the subsistence economy, where people meet their economic needs outside the market) and then the “market economy”. Those who cannot survive in the market economy have to maximize their potential in the economy of nature and in the people’s economy where they have considerable comparative advantage.
2.2 Non-dependence on external capital
The fundamental principle of a strategy of non-dependence on capital is to integrate the abilities of human beings, their creativity with the benefits that are available in nature free of cost. A major transformation of the way food is produced is an essential starting point. In today’s Sri Lanka, the growing poverty of the rural population is one of our biggest problems. Small farmers in Sri Lanka and the rest of the world are being marginalized. Agriculture has been transformed into an activity that requires considerable capital investment.
It is estimated that over half of all small scale farmers will be reduced to destitution in the process of market globalization. In India, around 40 million small farmers will suffer that fate in the next decade or so. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target of reducing the world’s hungry people by half by the year 2015 cannot be achieved. Instead, the hungry increased from 840 million in 2000 to over one billion in 2009.[1]
The situation in relation to global leaders’ efforts to solve other global crises such as the international financial crisis and crisis of financial institutions, the global trade crisis, the global warming and climate change crisis and the failure to meet the MDGs are the same.
The world is reaching a stage when the victims of these crises, people who are “excluded” from the globalized marketsince they are not needed by the globalized market operations, are called upon to develop their own agenda to solve their problems including the problems of the rest of the world. Such a strategy should be one that does not depend on capital operations and on accumulation of capital as their agenda.
2.3 “Survival” instead of “growth-oriented development”
The priority need is for survival. The strategy of growth-led development is an ideology that is needed by those who are involved in further increasing capital accumulation. Their claim of growth being the way of overcoming poverty has proved to be wrong. The other global crises have proved that this strategy of looking for growth is out dated and can only worsen the crises more. “Survival” should be the guiding principle for us all.
2.4 “Regenerative agriculture” in place of “organic” or “sustainable” agriculture
Concerns such as sustainability show that there is an overall threat to survival. But it is necessary to recognize that what the world needs today is not mere sustainability. Trying to sustain systems that are not basically sustainable is impossible. We need the recovery and restoration of regeneration.
The agenda of the people excluded should be one of survival based on recovering nature’s ability to restore, part of an emerging promotion of ecological agriculture. This is much broader than the idea of organic agriculture, which is the production of food without external chemical inputs, or sustainable agriculture. We should refer to “regenerative agriculture”. We need to restore natural processes. We need nature’s ability to regenerate if humankind and other life forms are to survive. (See Appendix)
2.5 “Food sovereignty” instead of “food security”
It is with this understanding that the world movement of small farmers, Via Campasena, with over a 150 million members in some 59 countries, has developed and declared the concept of Food Sovereignty instead of Food Security.
Food Sovereignty is defined as the right of all people to decide on what kind of food to eat, how food should be produced and where it is to be produced so that people will have the possibility of having healthy, nutritious food, produced locally and in having culturally appropriate food. Food security is defined as the right to have food available for a healthy active life.
(Ref: Global Forum of Food Sovereignty held in Mali worked out the details of food sovereignty with over six hundred participants from about 60 countries)
2.6 Other points for consideration in applying such a strategy
1.Application of this strategy in the plantation areas and in relation to the plantation people (Ref: plantation Research document of MONLAR and the Uva collective of poison free farmers.
2.Education and livelihoods for youth (Ref: proposals for higher education and the youth programme of MONLAR )
3.How this strategy could be adopted in the present programmes of the Agriculture Department such as “Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu, Gama Neguma, Gemi Diriya etc.
4.Cost savings on reducing the present programmes of infrastructure development to attract foreign investment such as highways, harbours, airports, thermal power stations etc. prevention of human displacement and environmental damage caused by these development projects.
5.Role of scientists and scholars in working out strategies and educational programmes.
6.Learning and experience sharing with other international organisations
i.Via Campasena
ii.Organisations in India such as Kudumbam, Subash Palekar ( Nature Farming ), Animal husbandry in India, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Brazil ( MST), Cuba,
iii.PAN AP ( Pesticide Action Network – Asia Pacific )
iv.Focus on Global South and its analysis of world issues
v.Forum on Alternatives of the World Social Forum
3.ADVANTAGES OF A NEW STRATEGY AND APPROACH
A very important piece of research done recently under the title International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)[2] revealed that although there has been much advancement in agriculture and production has increased, this process has made serious mistakes in ignoring the social and ecological aspects of agriculture. Pursuing a strategy of utilizing and enhancing our natural resources base in Sri Lanka will ensure that those social and ecological aspects of agriculture are addressed and will provide huge advantages to its people. Sri Lanka has a large population of small farmers where such a strategy can be followed most effectively.
We cannot continue to depend on imports of food and agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. At the moment there is considerable loss of natural soil fertility due to the use of damaging inputs of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and weed-killers; tremendous pollution of water, soil, food and atmosphere, and deaths and illnesses caused by pesticide poisoning; environmental damage caused by unhealthy agricultural and productive activities and loss of immunity caused by chemical contamination of food.
A new strategy would provide economic viability to small farmers with less capital and fully harness their creative potential. It would provide advantages in solving issues of scarcity of food and nutrition due to their high costs. It has the potential to improve health and reduce diseases that are becoming more and more prevalent due to poor nutrition and unhealthy food. This potential improvement in health using better food and medicinal plants could also be a solution to the impossible increase in health bills under the present process of market-led health services. It can also reduce energy consumed in machinery and in transportation by depending more on local food.
4.A PEOPLE’S AGENDA – A WAY FORWARD
It is now possible to think of an agenda that the poor, marginalized and excluded people could put forward as their programme. The overall agenda should be that people use a production process that makes the best use of nature’s resources to meet their survival needs first, then their other needs and those of the rest of society. Since they have only limited access to nature’s resources, this has to be done in a non-depleting and non-destructive manner. Nature’s regenerative capacity is central. This should be relevant to not only the poor, but also to the rest of the country. It should also be meaningful in the present global context, something that can unite the poor people in Sri Lanka with those in the rest of the world.
Many organizations and people are currently working on a similar agenda. One way of proceeding would be to present a policy document for wider discussion among those organizations, and through them to the wider public. This should be done without creating any illusion that the elected president, whoever it is, would carry out such an agenda. This has to be a people’s agenda planned and carried out by them. They should claim ownership and it should be based on their experiences. Much of this agenda can be carried out irrespective of what the government does. Practical implementation is the best way of understanding the concepts in depth.
5.ENDNOTE
It is important to recognize that the world has reached a stage when the modes and relationships of production need to have a qualitative change. The quantitative changes attempted so far to solve the problems of human advancement have begun to fail. The problems have reached a stage when their solution cannot be postponed any more.
The relationship between human beings and nature should be something that mutually enriches and regenerates, not one of humans exploiting nature destructively and nature reacting adversely. The present crises have revealed clearly that it is high time that human society realizes this need. This may be the time for such a qualitative change in the relationships of production that Marx predicted, and this would be the way to have socialist relationships of production and of having the right relationship between humans and nature that could allow further advancement of human society. When an ideology is grasped by the masses it becomes a material force that can change society.
These are some relevant basic understandings of Marx’s theory. The leftists in the country have a responsibility to give the poor and the oppressed masses a chance of working out their own agenda; otherwise they too become instruments utilized by capital to subjugate the people to their destructive agenda.
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APPENDIX - REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Recovery of the regenerative ability of nature is the type of agriculture that we see in a natural forest or in an agro forest grown analogous to a forest. Thus, it is also referred to as analogous forestry.
The natural growth process of a tree or a plant is entirely dependent on nature’s free contribution. It absorbs sunlight free, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and water from rain. There is a completely natural cycle where food is produced in the leaves, enough to feed not only the plant, but other plants, animals and human beings as well. Plants grow and give flowers and fruits to feed others. Then they grow old and decay to become part of a bigger process. Decaying leaves, branches and also animals, including their dung, fall to the ground and decay, a process carried out by millions and billions of micro organisms, earthworms and other tiny animals. Top soil is a medium that can sustain these microorganisms, but not if it is eroded either by wind or rain. Microbial activity can also be destroyed by unnecessary ploughing and cleaning of top soil, addition of poisonous external inputs such as weed-killers, pesticides or chemical fertilizer.
We need diversity to ensure ecological sustainability and regeneration. Insect and plant diversity provides natural balance, natural fertility and natural pest control. By growing plants and trees that grow into different canopies it is possible to maximize the absorption of sunlight that is converted into food and energy. The process of decay and prevention of soil erosion is necessary to protect the microbial activity that enhances soil fertility and ability of soil to absorb and retain more water, which will enhance the water availability and growth of plants. It reduces drought losses and provides more water in soil and in nature for drinking, for irrigation and other purposes.
The recycling of organic matter ensures diversity. It is known that animal dung and urine promote microbial activity. Therefore, we need to combine animals with plants in a proper approach to ecological agriculture. It has also been found that the indigenous varieties of animals, cows etc. give much better results. We should use indigenous seeds since they are much more adapted to local conditions whereas high yielding varieties require external fertilizer and thus capital.
This example of ecological agriculture or nature farming shows what we mean by regenerative agriculture. It illustrates what we mean when we say that human activity should be something that recovers and restores the ability of nature to regenerate it.
Experiences in such ecological farming have shown that the overall productivity of land can be equal to, or even much bigger than the type of artificial external input dependent agriculture.
It was revealed at the World Summit on Food Security held in Rome in November 2009 that the FAO has estimated that the increase in the world population by 2050 would be up to over 9 billion. This increase is expected to take place almost entirely in developing countries. The increase in the world food prices that took place over the last two years or so has resulted in a massive increase in the number of people hungry in the world. (Ref: WSFS documents of FAO)
The food situation of the world’s poor is expected to become worse more rapidly due to other factors such as greater interest in bio fuels and animal feed production than in production of food for the hungry; more rural to urban migration, which is expected to reach a proportion of 70:30 changing from the present proportion of 50:50; climate change affecting food production processes adversely etc. In spite of these alarming signals the efforts made by the FAO to convene a World Summit on Food Security to get the world leaders to make commitments that were seen as necessary to meet this food crisis by 2050 ended up in very little success. Out of the G-8 country Heads, only the Italian Prime Minister attended and no commitments were made.
This again proves that the design and agenda of global capital is not to feed the hungry, but to keep increasing profit accumulation.
[2] This was a landmark study that revealed the mistakes that had been made in agricultural development worldwide and giving the directions that future agriculture should take. Commissioned world bodies such as the WB, UN FAO, and many other lead agencies, the study was done by a group of 400 eminent scientists in many countries for over four years.
7:13 AM
Ajith
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