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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Sweden (96) and the US (51). In order to achieve their ESG-inspired, virtue-signaling goal of being the first “organic country,” the government abruptly banned the use of chemical fertilizers in April 2021. This led to a dramatic drop in yields across the board and by the time the government realized their blunder and tried reversing course in November 2021, the damage had already been done.According to environmental activist Michael Shellenberger,“[O]ne-third of Sri Lanka’s farm lands were dormant in 2021 due to the fertilizer ban. Over 90% of Sri Lanka’s farmers had used chemical fertilizers before they were banned. After they were banned, an astonishing 85% experienced crop losses. The numbers are shocking. After the fertilizer ban, rice production fell 20% and prices skyrocketed 50 percent in just six months. Sri Lanka had to import $450 million worth of rice despite having been self-sufficient in the grain just months earlier. The price of carrots and tomatoes rose five-fold. While there are just two million farmers in Sri Lanka, 15 million of the country’s 22 million people are directly or indirectly dependent on farming.” The bigger question is, how on Earth did Sri Lanka find itself in such a self-inflicted mess? Well, the short answer is: They were ill-advised by the likes of the WEF to go down this path of protecting the environment at the expense of severely compromising their food security. ESG has officially collapsed its first country, just like the IMF structural adjustment programs did in the 1980s and 1990s. In a 2016 article, penned in collaboration with the WEF, economist Joseph Stiglitz showered praise on Sri Lanka’s overall economic development and wrote, “Given its education levels, Sri Lanka may be able to move directly into more technologically advanced sectors, high-productivity organic farming, and higher-end tourism.” It is this very prescription that has failed dismally and the people of Sri Lanka are now facing the dire consequences of economic destruction, not “experts” like Joseph Stiglitz. What is suggested as a solution for the devastation caused by terrible ideas? More horrendous ideas from the institutions that caused the initial problem. In April 2022, as the government was negotiating with the IMF for a bailout, the United Nations Development Programme doubled down by recommending that the Sri Lankan government should become a candidate for a “debt for nature swap” that would unlock debt relief in exchange for investing a fixed sum on nature conservation. Furthermore, in May 2022, Sri Lanka signed onto a green finance taxonomy with the International Finance Corporation that, among other things, includes a commitment to organic fertilizers. It appears that they are determined to hold the line in support of “the current thing.”Despite the apparent failure of
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