[ktaylora]

There's a premium that can be exacted from switching to organic agriculture that isn't be discussed in this article. Sri Lanka has a limited land mass available for food production and they mostly export commodities to other countries. We're talking ~25,000 sq-mi. For context, the US state of Kansas is ~82,000 sq-mi. If you cannot physically expand the footprint of agriculture in Sri Lanka to boost revenues, the thinking in government was probably to try to switch to organic to fetch a higher price for exports. The mistake is that you can't just flip a switch and transition to organic production. That kind of change requires a generational change in farmers to pull off, and you will still fetch far lower yields in the interim.

[robbiep]

Not to be rude but did you bother to think before writing that post? Sri Lanka is a net importer of food. It is not self sufficient. You can’t get a organic premium if you can’t feed your own people, and organic food has a well known yield reduction.

It was abundantly transparent to all commentators at the time that this was purely to try and reduce capital outflows.

[ktaylora]

Uh, yes, my snarky friend. I didn't suggest Sri Lanka is agriculturally self-sufficient. With so little a land area to work with, that would not be possible.

It's not clear that switching to organic agriculture in any way reduces capital outflows. Do you mean reducing import costs by not having to import chemical fertilizer? If that were the case, I think Sri Lanka would focus on boosting domestic production and finding cheaper suppliers.

[lostlogin]

What if you sell the organic produce and use the money to buy beer non/organic imported food?

It might be more profitable in the long term, but a hard cutover sure isn’t.

[andrewmutz]

If you are short on land, organic is not a good approach. It takes 40% more land compared to traditional farming.

[prawn]

And is it likely that buyers who favour organic produce would be looking at food miles and buying locally? Not sure if that's as relevant at export scale.

[worik]

Depends what you are growing.

[denton-scratch]

How's the organic tea market doing? FWIW, I've never seen organic tea in shops, and I don't know anyone that insists on organic tea.

[gs17]

What country are you in? In the US, I've seen organic tea in the vast majority of grocery stores I've been to. Cafes sometimes have it too, but it's less common.

[bradleybuda]

That's the nice thing about free trade and free markets - everyone is running a decentralized version of that experiment and incrementally updating the data live. If you make both paths available (organic vs fertilizer) and let the farmers whose livelihoods are on the line choose, then they are very likely to make the best choice.

[lottin]

The best choice for farmers isn't necessarily the best choice for society as a whole.

[ravel-bar-foo]

If society values agricultural output or having income in rural areas it's a lot better to have farmers making the choices themselves than to chose whatever non-farmer/urban/plutocrat politicians would mandate.

[modo_mario]

What about the nitrogen issue in places like Belgium or the Netherlands?

[midasuni]

Not when the externalities are hidden, especially when hidden from both producer and consumer

[TulliusCicero]

If you could profitably get higher prices like that, wouldn't farmers have already done it?