[lanstin]

As the article notes the government forced the food production to go all organic in one year with no plan, yields crashed, and now they have to import even rice.

It sustained itself thru tourism and local food production.

They have sold tea overseas since being a British colony.

Also, another factor is they have to import all their medicines and oil, which is also dependent on foreign reserves. So now not enough food, no cooking fuel, no medicines, no petrol, and not enough fuel for electricity. Truly a wretched set of problems.

You can buy Dilmah tea to help, Hand made Batik shirts, and visit. It is a truly lovely country, with good tourism facilities.

[yunohn]

> Dilmah tea to help, Hand made Batik shirts

In my experience, exported goods provide very little profit to the original manufacturer. The middle layers greedily absorb all the profit. In fact, in the west, labor costs to stock/sell it in the supermarket are significantly higher than what the manufacturer made for their effort.

Instead, I’d really recommend donating the money to an action group or trusted charity, ideally if you can also verify they are doing actual things on the ground.

[lanstin]

It is hard to do from the US. I can donate directly to my family and have them give to local aid groups but have not been able to donate directly except to groups that have a US presence (and no doubt much higher aid overhead).

But longer term, having Sri Lanka goods be valued on the world market will help the island. Dilmah employs a lot of people on the island.

[panarky]

Cancelled flights, fuel shortages and street violence aren't helping the tourism sector.

[markdown]

> It is a truly lovely country, with good tourism facilities.

Not to mention the people. Absolute wonderful human beings despite years of war and turmoil.

[netsharc]

> As the article notes the government forced the food production to go all organic in one year with no plan, [...]

Because spending on fertilizer was a lot of their foreign currency spending, and the government thought "We'll just force 'organic farming' so our spending will look better!".

[nibbleshifter]

I'm looking forward to going back in a year or so, when the situation stabilises.

My risk appetite is significantly higher than the average tourist, but even I'm not stupid enough to go there right now when there's the potential for things to get much worse, very quickly.