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Organic Agriculture in Sri Lanka |
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Organic Agriculture in Sri Lanka -
Some Future Considerations |
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Kamal Melvani, General Secretary, Lanka
Organic Agriculture Movement |
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email:
neosynth@sltnet.lk
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Modern organic agriculture*
in Sri Lanka is coming of age now. According to IFOAM &
FiBL (2006), there are 15,215 hectares of land under
organic management, with a share of total agricultural
land of 0.65% and a presence of around 3,300 organic
farms.1
While data
from the Export Development Board seems only available
till 2000, suffice it to say that up to that time, 15
organizations, both private and non government were
responsible for exporting 753 metric tons of organic
tea, spices, essential oils, cashew, desiccated coconut,
dried fruits, vegetables and herbs valued at S.L. Rs.
543 million.2
Most of
these organic products are exported to Europe, Japan and
Australia. The organic directory published in 2006
states that the number of registered exporters had since
risen to 30, non governmental and farmer organizations
number 34, the number of certified estates number 20 and
there are 177 independent growers who come under the
umbrella of the Department of Export Agriculture.3 |
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The backbone of a vital
organic agriculture is the Sri Lankan farmer and those
organizations and persons who work with him/her. The
organic movement in Sri Lanka started in the 1980s where
a group of local NGO representatives, planters,
scientists and environmental officers had drafted a
Memorandum of Association to create a movement named
Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement (LOAM). This can be
seen as the official starting point for the
dissemination of organic agriculture in Sri Lanka. The
primary objectives of LOAM are to promote organic
agriculture, to establish, improve and maintain
standards for organic agriculture and to create
awareness of organic products among the people of Sri
Lanka. In 2001 LOAM was registered as an official legal
body.1 |
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The Movement has matured
in the past six years where in principle, its
achievements can be evaluated in the manner in which it
has influenced Government policy. LOAM was instrumental
in establishing the guidelines for certification in 2006
that were presented to the Ministry of Environment and
Natural Resources. In 2007, at the invitation of the Sri
Lanka Standards Institute, LOAM played a decisive role
in drawing up the Standards for Organic Agriculture in
Sri Lanka. LOAM was also a partner to the EU SL Organic
Agriculture Project that sought to set up the first
National certification company in Sri Lanka. While LOAM
members continue to engage in awareness creation and
field work on their own accord, the time has come to
consolidate their energies in order to face the many
challenges ahead. While the Government seems seriously
bent on promoting organic agriculture it behoves us at
LOAM to set the direction. Looking closely at the issues
at hand it seems pertinent to discuss the role that
organic agriculture must play in terms of conserving
biodiversity, safeguarding water quality and facing up
to climate change for instance. |
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Biodiversity conservation and restoration |
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Biodiversity provides
the foundation of all agriculture.4
The
simplification of agro-ecosystems to monoculture
production and the removal of non-crop vegetation from
the farm unit (e.g. hedgerows, shelter belts and field
margins) has contributed to the homogeneity of
agricultural landscapes by reducing botanical and
structural variation, resulting in both a reduced
capacity of agricultural areas to serve as habitat for
wild species as well as to effectively internally
regulate populations of pests and disease causing
organisms which affect crop productivity5,6.
This has
resulted in a widespread decline in farm species
abundance and diversity across many taxonomic groupings,
including high rates of wildlife mortality and reduced
reproductive success of many species.
7,8,9,10,5,11&12
This loss of biodiversity has also resulted in a reduced
capacity of agro-ecosystems to perform many essential
ecosystem functions such as purification of water,
internal regulation of pests and diseases, carbon
sequestration, and degradation of toxic compounds.
13 |
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However,
agriculturalists are now aware of the value of the
biodiversity "input" for agriculture. The ecological
functions of diverse ecosystems (such as balanced
predation, pollination, nutrient cycling, degradation of
toxic compounds, carbon sequestration) are today
recognized to be central to sustainable food production.
Moving away from simplified agricultural systems offers
opportunities to produce food while enhancing natural
landscapes. 14 |
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At the same time,
biodiversity in all agro ecosystems should be seen as
being comprised of two primary elements: crop
biodiversity and systems biodiversity. Crop biodiversity
refers to the species present on the farm that will
provide direct economic input to the farm. Systems
biodiversity is the non crop component of the
biodiversity that is required to sustain the agro
ecosystem. It is both of these measures that indicate
the state of biodiversity in that agro ecosystem. The
gain in
biodiversity in an
agricultural field is directly proportional to a change
in the management regime adopted. Therefore the
challenge before us is to evolve a system of knowledge
that will enable the use of biodiversity data in
monitoring and evaluation of organic farming.15
This is
important given that the present National Standards for
Organic Agriculture in Sri Lanka state that “the
presence of biodiversity (soil, surface and aquatic) is
an indication of the health of the agro ecosystem.”
16 |
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Over the last century,
population, market pressures and the development of new
agricultural technologies have encouraged patterns of
agricultural development tending towards agricultural
intensification (i.e. increasing scales of monoculture
production, intensive mechanical tillage, irrigation,
and the use of synthetic fertilizer, pest control agents
and a restricted diversity of crop and livestock
varieties), often leading to natural resources
degradation. The majority of the human population
increase is expected to take place in the
biodiversity-rich developing countries of the tropics
like Sri Lanka.14 |
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The Convention on
Biological Diversity “encourages the development of
technologies and farming practices that not only
increase productivity, but also arrest degradation as
well as reclaim, rehabilitate, restore and enhance
biological diversity and monitor adverse effects on
sustainable agricultural diversity. These could include,
inter alia, organic farming, integrated pest management,
biological control, no-till agriculture, multicropping,
intercropping, crop rotation and agricultural forestry”
(Decision III/11, 15 e) 17.
While several agricultural approaches make
sustainability claims, organic agriculture is the only
well-defined agricultural management system, including
recommended and restricted practices that aim at
environmental protection and food production. However,
the main challenge in protected areas is to conserve
biodiversity while providing the basis for the social
and economic development of local residents.14
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In the past twenty seven
years an alternative system of land management has been
developed in Sri Lanka where the landscapes of farm
gardens have been designed to include a variety of both
annual and tree crops that provide a host of utility
benefits like food, medicine, timber, fuelwood, fodder,
fibre etc. They are also designed to provide
whole forest products and services like water yield,
carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and
phytoremediation. Of specific relevance is that they
generate leaf litter and detritus thus facilitating soil
biodiversity and building soil organic matter. This
technology called analog forestry has proved to
be extremely effective in the restoration of degraded
land and has been used in the rehabilitation of
watersheds, Tsunami affected lands and ground water that
has been contaminated by agrochemicals. Analog forestry
is a system of land management that seeks to establish a
tree dominated ecosystem analogous in architectural
structure and ecological function to the original climax
or sub climax vegetation community. Analog forestry
moves beyond other current agro forestry practices since
it includes an explicit focus on the identification and
incorporation of biological diversity. In fact the
income generation from these forest gardens has been
seen to consistently increase in time;
18 they
also reduce the risk from the cultivation of a single or
few crops since the products can be harvested all year
round. This technology has demonstrated that since all
crops in these new forests are grown organically, many
species of animals and birds that were once confined to
the original forest move in and establish populations.
19 |
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Safeguarding water quality |
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A Report released in
2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of
Sciences
states that: “should
past dependences of the global environmental impacts of
agriculture on human population and consumption
continue, 109 hectares of natural ecosystems
would be converted to agriculture by 2050. This would be
accompanied by 2.4 to 2.7-fold increase in nitrogen and
phosphorus-driven eutrophication of terrestrial,
freshwater, and near-shore marine ecosystems, and
comparable increase in pesticide use. Eutrophication and
habitat destruction would cause unprecedented ecosystem
simplification, loss of ecosystem services, and species
extinctions.20
Already in Sri Lanka we are facing problems of the
contamination of our rivers, streams and ground water
due to nitrogen based fertilizers and other
agrochemicals. The impact on human health has revealed a
host of kidney related problems, carcinomas and
Methemoglobinemia though more research needs to be done.
21, 22 & 23
The need to influence water policy is therefore
critical where organic agriculture must be mooted as the
primary land use in watersheds, specifically in the
riparian zone. |
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Climate Change |
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Agriculture
contributes to over 20 percent of global
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural
intensification has had major detrimental impacts on the
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the world. The
doubling of production during the last 35 years was
associated with a 6.9 fold increase in nitrogen
fertilization, 3.5 fold increases in phosphorus
fertilization and a 1.7 fold increase in irrigated land.
Agriculture is also affected by climate change.
An increase in global warming will shift cultivation
zones polewards, plant growth and production being
jeopardized by changes in the distribution of rainfall,
the increase of UV-B radiation, and changes in the
chemical composition of the atmosphere. In regions with
continental climate, soils are subject to desiccation,
meaning climate change will aggravate problems of
salinity, erosion, and desertification. Extreme climatic
events will occur more frequently. Pests and diseases
favoured by a warmer climate will continue to
proliferate. All these factors will have negative
impacts on agricultural yields
24 |
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Two possible courses of
action to alleviate climate change are a) limiting the
green house gas emissions and b) enhancing the removal
or uptake of these gases from the atmosphere to
stabilise the pools of sediments, trees and soil organic
matter 25 |
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Organic agriculture not
only enables ecosystems to better adjust to the effects
of climate change but also offers the potential to
reduce the emissions of agricultural greenhouse gases.
Moreover, mixed farming and the diversity of organic
crop rotations protect the fragile soil surface and may
even counteract climate change by restoring the organic
matter content.26 Managing
soils to increase the stocks of carbon stored as soil
organic matter can be expected to reduce the rate of
increase in atmospheric CO2 and to improve
soil quality, thus resulting in additional benefits
beyond greenhouse gas reductions.27 |
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Sri Lanka needs to
develop better management practices that could increase
carbon sinks, energy efficiency improvements and
production of energy from crops and residues. This will
result in a further mitigation potential, or cumulative
carbon storage. Many long-term experiments in the world
support the cognition that organic fertilization (animal
manure, green manure, catch and cover crops) rebuild
soil organic matter.
A 20% increase in soil
organic matter as a result of organic agriculture would
result in an estimated amount of 9 tonnes carbon per ha.
There is a considerable potential increase of soil
carbon when manure, straw-recycling, minimal tillage,
reforestation and energy-saving plant production are
combined.24
This research demonstrates the need to focus on the use
of paddy straw and encourage farmers to engage in the
cultivation of green manure crops in Sri Lanka. |
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Nitrous oxide emissions
not only contribute severely to the greenhouse effect
but also to the depletion of stratospheric ozone. Almost
90% of the global atmospheric N2O is formed
during the microbial transformation of nitrate (NO3-)
and ammonia (NH4+) in soils and water.24
Of significance is the ‘dry farming’ or Nawa Kekulama
method of paddy cultivation as promoted by Mr. G.K.
Upawansa. This method uses a mixture of neem seed cake
and compost to suppress the action of denitrifying
bacteria thereby reducing the loss of NO3 and
NH4 from paddy ecosystems.
28 |
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Methane emissions:
Agriculture is believed to account for roughly
two-thirds of the total man-made CH4 mainly
from paddy rice fields, burning of biomass and ruminants
(enteric fermentation and animal waste treatment).
26
According to Mr. G.K. Upawansa in a paper delivered to
the then Minister of Environment in 2005, “under wetland
conditions, large quantities of methane are emitted.
Since the Nawa Kekulama method requires limited water
resources, methane emission is kept at a bare minimum.”
29 This
system of rice production has been demonstrated to
generate greater profit per acre than that of
conventional rice cultivation. It also uses less water
for cultivation. 30 |
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Where success has
been achieved, it is incumbent upon us to follow the
example and replicate it. |
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References
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1. |
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Country
Profile – Sri Lanka - Organic & Natural
Products - International Trade Centre,
UNCTAD |
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2. |
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Vaheesan,
Saminathan, 2002, Organic agriculture and
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Organic Agriculture Directory
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Biodiversity and Organic Agriculture: An
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Soil Association 2000. The Biodiversity
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Dudley, Nigel and Sue Stolton 1998.
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Gliessman, Stephan R. 1999. Agroecology:
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Edge, Daniel 2000. Wildlife and Agricultural
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Bugg, Robert L and Trenham, Peter C. 2003.
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Senanayake, Ranil, 2004, Maintaining
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Sri Lanka Standards Institute, 2007, Draft
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UNEP (1992), the Convention on Biological
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18. |
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Wickremaarachi, W.D.N., 2005; Irrigation
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University of Ruhuna, 1995, A Research study
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Bernoux, Martial., Feller, Christian.,
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Weil, Ray R., and Magdoff, Fred, 2004,
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Main Themes |
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