As a nation although Sri Lankans are ahead of the literacy curve in terms of writing and reading, are very backward in terms of wisdom. Thus that wisdom vacuum is filled with hypocrisy and stupidity. That’s why people stood in kilometers long queues to get the so-called corona medicine made by a trickster named Dhammika in Kegalle.
Another time, they promoted Kuwait Kumari who sang by asshole. While they promote Kuwait Kumari they criticized Yohani, a super singer who conquered the world.
In 2019, those citizens enthroned Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was utmost unfit to rule the Country .After Gotabhaya became the President, he worked like a bull in a China shop. “Gota” was a rubber seal for smugglers. His stupid decisions bankrupted the country.
Some of Gotabaya’s stupid decisions are as follows
1. Closure of air port During Corona pandemic and subsequent quarantine scam
2. Ban on burial Corona dead bodies that shattered the nation harmony
3. Ban on chemical fertilizers
4. Ban on oil palm cultivation
Today we are talking about banning oil palm cultivation. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil that comes from the fruit of oil palm trees .It mainly contains 3 types of fats such as saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Since palm oil contains more unsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat, it consider as a heathy product .
in context of Sri Lanka 80% of edible oil consumption is palm oil. Coconut oil share is 12%, Globally palm oil consumption is 62 % .
And most human foods contain palm oil. Mainly margarine, ice cream, biscuits, processed meat products, chocolate, confectionery, instant noodles, and milk powder contains palm oil. Also, perishable foods such as biscuits and sweets cannot be produced using coconut oil and it is essential to use palm oil.
Sri Lanka is a country that imports palm oil and spends 270 million US dollars per year. In other words, this amount is close to the Foreign exchange cost of importing chemical fertilizers per year.
Mainly 2 reasons influenced the Gotabaya to ban the oil palm cultivation
1. Power of black money and wrong data that given by the local coconut oil sellers who disguised as patriots
2. Giving a market monopoly to Gota’s business partner Pyramid Wilma
Nevertheless above 2 points were hidden . Gota showed the country that the reason for banning oil palm is to encourage local coconut oil production and saving the environment
In Sri Lanka It is practically impossible to use coconut oil as a substitute for palm oil . At present, the average coconut yield in the country is metric ton 0.8 per hectare. In order to replace palm oil with coconut oil, the coconut cultivation area should be increased by five times. But there is no such large amount of land in this country.
Generally Oil Palm yield is metric ton 4 per hectare. It is possible to meet the country’s edible oil requirement by oil palm cultivation also saving millions of dollars that goes to oversees as well generates thousand of jobs.
Comparative advantage of oil palm cultivation
1. Planting and maintenance is easy
2. Weed control is not necessary
3. One worker can easily maintain more than an acre of cultivated plot
4. Less pest damage
5. Harvest can start after 4 years and same can be continue for 20 years.
6. Harvest can be done for whole year
7. As one worker can maintain a large plot of land, their earnings are high
The ruling party 2014-2019 supported the oil palm cultivation as they considered the advantages of it . During their rule , 12000 hectares of oil palms were cultivated. More than 26 billion rupees were invested . Nearly 5000 job opportunities were created. But Gotabaya issued a gazette and banned oil palm sector by overnight. Gotabaya’s move was a terror act on investors. Same was badly affected the entire investment industry.
It is worthy to note, All the reasons given by Gotabaya to ban oil palm is bogus and unreasonable. It is very simmer to so-called ban that imposed on the burial of Corona dead bodies .
Gota said that the main aim of impose ban on oil palm cultivation is to protect underground water and springs. But All the data and formulas used by Gota to justify the ban was point less.
As of now 18% of Malaysia’s land is used for oil palm cultivation . Further it is a crop that has been cultivating since 50 years. But there has no record of groundwater depletion in Malaysia. And the contribution of oil palm to the country’s gross national production is 2.7%. They earn US $9 billion by palm oil exporting . That is more than the amount of foreign exchange that Sri Lanka earns from the apparel and tourism industry. In more 5 lakh Malaysians have got job opportunities in the farm oil industry.
When the so-called professors of Sri Lanka advised Gotabayata to ban oil palm cultivation, India’s scholars advised Narendra Modi to increase oil palm cultivation. Narendra Modi was advised so by the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology of India and it not a group of so-called scholars like the local cult that advised Gotabaya . It is a fit and proper institute established by Prime Minister Shri Nehru in 1960 to pursue new knowledge.
THE Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology of India advised Modi to increase India’s oil palm cultivation by 2 million hectares. Accordingly, Modi introduced subsidies and bank loans for oil palm industry .
Today Former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake has taken the lead to re-permit farm cultivation which was arbitrarily banned by Gota. Ravi is a practical man who deals with new economic trends paradigms and parameters throughout the world. It is a good that Ravi taking the lead in revising Gota’s wrong economic moves and reset it in accordance with the new world trends.
Moreover, the following projects started by Ravi while he heading the finance ministry should be restarted.
1. The project that connecting Sri Lanka to the global e-commerce platform and acquiring facilities such as PayPal
2. Dry port concept.
3. Project to allow foreign trade ships to register under the Sri Lankan flag.
4. Creating an ocean economy
