Unless you force its implementation by fiat. From India's The Print:
How Sri Lanka’s overnight flip to total organic farming has led to an economic disaster
Sri Lanka has been hit by a serious economic emergency even as it struggles to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dwindling foreign exchange reserves, a sinking currency and soaring food inflation have come together to create a crisis which is unprecedented even by the record of the island nation that was torn by civil war for decades.
The surge in food prices and a real fear of hoarding of essential food items was the last straw that forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to impose the economic emergency on 31 August under the public security ordinance.
At the root of this economic catastrophe is a bizarre overnight flip by Rajapaksa’s government on 29 April to ban the import of chemical fertilisers and any other agrochemicals to make the Indian Ocean nation the first in the world to practice organic-only agriculture.
The result: prices of daily food items like sugar, rice and onions have soared over twice, with sugar even touching record Rs 200/kg; kerosene oil and cooking gas prices are surging; tea crops are predicted to fail in October; and there are fears over a hit to production of other crucial export crops like cinnamon, pepper, rubber, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, betel leaves, cocoa, and vanilla.
These developments come amid a 30 basis points rise in the month-on-month inflation in the country, jumping to 6 per cent in August from 5.7 per cent in July. Its foreign reserves plunged 62% to $2.8 billion in July against $7.5 billion in November 2019. Moreover, the Sri Lankan rupee has fallen 7 per cent against the US dollar this year.
Organic farming is a good thing. When practiced correctly, it allows the earth to renew itself and it will eventually match commercial production yields with little or no need for outside chemicals. One simply does not implement it Nation-wide with no training and no fall-back options. Damned stupid move and of course, as with any bureaucracy, there is no accountability. The idiot responsible for this "sounds good" decision will never be held responsible for the repercussions of his action.
My "mini-rant" again:
Doing something that "sounds" good is a very liberal thing to do. There is little or no thought put into the program, all that is needed is for it to sound good. After the fact, there is no accountability. People do not do the basic research to see if this new program is actually doing what it intended to do. More often than not, it is not addressing the problem and additionally, adding some new layer of confusion and harm.
The liberal reaction when this is brought to light is to expand the offending program. They could not have made a mistake - after all, they are the brightest and the best. It must be that the program was just not given enough money or resources. They need to take the failing program and make it bigger so that it can do even more fail.
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