When former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa abruptly banned chemical fertiliser imports in mid-2021, he turned Sri Lanka into a case study for how not to do organic farming.
The restrictions — which caught agricultural officials and farmers by surprise — sparked chaos in the agricultural sector. The lack of alternatives led to sharp drops in output, with harvests of rice and other crops falling. This, in turn, stoked a severe economic crisis, which culminated in the country’s default on $40bn in foreign debt last year. The once-fertile island is now dependent on food grants and imports to manage a hunger crisis.
Even though Rajapaksa reversed the ban about six months later, fertiliser supplies in Sri Lanka never normalised. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 pushed up prices globally, while a lack of foreign currency in Sri Lanka led to severe shortages and rationing of imported fertiliser. A bag of urea that cost Rs1,500 ($4.65) shot up to as much as Rs40,000 before falling to a subsidised price of Rs10,000 ($124), says Ahilan Kadirgamar, a sociologist at the University of Jaffna.