Let the seeds fall on good soil and bear fruits - EDITORIAL

n unexpectedly large crowd of about 300,000 attended the three-day exhibition and sale held at the BMICH on March 6, 7 and 8 as the first major step towards reviving a poison-free Sri Lanka. This means the rice and other crops we cultivate will be free of toxic agrochemicals and thereby the food we eat—ranging from rice to vegetables and fruits—will not be poisoned or polluted.
Wijeratne Sakalasuriya, the enterprising National Food Programme Coordinator at the Presidential Secretariat, has said the national government hopes that within three years 500,000 hectares of land would be cultivated with organic fertiliser and thus millions of people, including children would have access to food that are not poisoned or polluted. 
Mr. Sakalasuriya, one of the main coordinators of the poison-free Sri Lanka mission organised jointly by the Presidential Secretariat and the Agriculture Ministry, has said the Government was thrilled about the positive response to the three-day exhibition and sale where poison free food and organic fertiliser was made available at affordable prices in some 350 stalls. 

But he insists there is a long, challenging journey ahead and the Government hopes the farmer community, social justice groups, religious communities, political parties and others would actively cooperate in this noble mission. According to Mr. Sakalasuriya the Government will hold similar exhibitions and sales in other Provinces within the next two years. 
The Ven. Athuraliye Rathana Thera—one of the powerful and prophetic voices in this mission— says the next poison-free Sri Lanka programme will be held in Jaffna. Thus it will not only provide poison-free food to the people and reduce the pollution of mother earth and our ground water resources, but also will be a love bridge between the North and the South as a step towards sustainable reconciliation and finding a just and lasting solution to the ethnic conflict. The prelate has also appealed to the farmer community—some of whom are still insisting that the government should provide them imported agro-chemicals at subsidised rates—to reflect deeply on the need to work for the common good of all the people of our country and go back to the hallowed farming practices, which Sri Lanka followed for centuries before the transnational agro-chemical companies in the 1960s duped Sri Lanka and other countries into a bogus green revolution.

According to Mr. Sakalasuriya, a mechanical weeding machine at a cost of Rs. 550,000 each will be given to every farmers’ association, so that there will be no need for them to use imported weedicides. Last year there was a crisis over the use of the weedicide Glyphosate, especially in tea plantation areas. Though various vested interests would pressurise on the Government to continue the large scale use of this weedicide, President Maithripala Sirisena took a strong step and ordered that it be banned. Mr. Sakalasuriya says that to motivate farmers, the Government will increase the sale and prices of organic products.
Ven. Athraliye Rathana Thera has also promised that the Government would provide seed paddy suitable for organic farming in addition to modern technology, Governmental and Non-Governmental help to take up organic farming. National Farmers Federation leader and JVP member Namal Karunaratne- who has led many big protests by farmers against the withdrawal of the agrochemical fertiliser at subsidised rates-has said the intention behind the BMICH exhibition and sale is good but to get farmers to farm organically, much more need to be done.

He says the farmers need to be made fully aware of the dangers of toxic agrochemicals the immense benefits of organic fertilisers for the farmers and the country. We also urge the Government to make maximum use of State television and other media to propagate the value of organic farming. Besides that, the Government should set up manufacturing and distribution centres for organic fertiliser in every Grama Niladhari division, so that farmers would have access to it at affordable prices.
As President Maithripala Sirisena said at the BMICH event, nothing and no one should be allowed to disrupt or divert the journey towards a healthy Sri Lanka.