[spaceman_2020]

Very honestly, it might have worked out fine - organic produce fetches a much higher price overseas. If its already a somewhat niche product like tea, organic produce might go even higher and make up for the loss in yield.

For Sri Lanka, it was the perfect storm of covid decimating tourism AND overseas demand for their produce.

Without Covid, they might have been able to stay afloat on tourism dollars until the organic farming thing started showing results.

[bmelton]

Sri Lanka is the second largest tea exporter in the world -- if you converted all of that to organic, then odds are good that the organic tea market just collapses.

Beyond that, it's easy to get rid of modern fertilizers, but the tradeoff is significantly lower yield. To make up for the loss of yield, you need more space. Sri Lanka is a small island that is densely populated, so space is at a premium. Yielding less crop for the same money might have worked out if not for the pandemic, except for the fact that they domestically consumed most of their domestic staple goods, exporting the surplus. Now they've resorted to importing.

[elurg]

> Very honestly, it might have worked out fine - organic produce fetches a much higher price overseas.

This also affected staple crops like rice which are eaten domestically, effectively forcing the country to start importing food instead of fertilizer.

It's not plausible to move the entire agricultural sector towards luxury exports by government fiat.

[pjc50]

> It's not plausible to move the entire agricultural sector towards luxury exports by government fiat.

.. overnight.

Some countries have managed to pivot towards luxury exports, and indeed this is one of the standard things that the IMF tries to make failing countries do, but it's a multi-decade process.

[philistine]

Organic farming is strictly self-regulated. Usually it takes something like five years for a field that was used for traditional farming to be considered organic. The field has to flush the insecticide. With a decision to prevent forex issues by banning fertilizer, Sri Lanka could not afford to wait years for its organic products to be recognized internationally. The plan was foolish.

[denton-scratch]

> niche product like tea

Perhaps your niches are smaller than mine. Some people regard tea as an indispensable bulk commodity.