M.D. Somadasa is worried about this year's crop. For four decades, he has sold vegetables grown by local farmers using foreign-made pesticides and chemicals, which helped them reap bigger and richer crops from the verdant hills that ring his hometown.
Then came Sri Lanka, which turned to organic farming. The government campaign lasted seven months. The policy is blamed for a sharp drop in crop yields and high prices that are making the country more vulnerable to food shortages.
The prices of some food have gone up by a third compared with a year ago. The prices of vegetables have gone up five times over the past year.
Mr. Somadasa is a vegetable seller in the small town of Horana, just outside the island nation's capital. We can not find enough vegetables. People find it hard to buy vegetables because of the price hikes.
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A paddy field is in October. Rice is the country's staple food.
The government in Sri Lanka is rushing to avoid a crisis. The minister of plantation told the Parliament that the government would be buyingfertilizer for tea, rubber and coconut, which make up the nation's major agricultural exports.
Mr. Pathirana told The New York Times that they would be imports depending on the requirement in the country. We don't have enough chemical fertilizers in the country because we didn't import them. There is a shortage.
Food costs are going up around the world as supply chain knots are slowly unsnarled and as prices for natural gas that is used to makefertilizer and other supplies are going up. Sri Lanka made some mistakes that added to the pressures.
Modern agriculture relies on chemical fertilizers. Governments and environmental groups have become more concerned about their use. They have been blamed for the growth of water pollution problems, while scientists have found an increased risk of cancer from excessive nitrate exposure.
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Prices for some vegetables have gone beyond the reach of many Sri Lankans.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made a promise during his election campaign that he would ban the import of chemical fertilizers if he was elected.
He told the United Nations summit that sustainable food systems are part of Sri Lanka's rich cultural heritage. Increased use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides led to adverse health and environmental impacts.
Critics of Mr. Rajapaksa pointed to the fact that Sri Lanka has a diminishing amount of money.
The tourist industry in Sri Lanka provides one tenth of the country's economic output and is a major source of foreign currency. The rupee has lost about one-fifth of its value, which makes it hard for Sri Lanka to purchase food and supplies abroad. It had to take out more loans from Chinese state banks because of its huge debt load.
Basil Rajapaksa, the finance minister and the president's brother, told Parliament last month that the annual earnings from tourism were not materialized over the last two years. The foreign reserves of the government are being challenged.
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There is a line to buy oil. The country's economy has been battered.
Sri Lanka's foreign exchange reserves fell as the economy struggled and global prices rose. The slide would be halted if foreign-madefertilizer was shaved from the shopping list.
The country was hit by a chronic shortage of dollars, but not with chronic kidney disease.
The push for organic farming began before Mr. Rajapaksa was president and before his brother was president. Some farmers and industry officials say they are open to the idea of reducing dependence on chemicals in farming. The shift was too sudden for farmers who didn't know how to work organically, according to the director of Verité Research.
A July survey by Verité found that three-quarters of Sri Lanka's farmers relied heavily on chemical fertilization. The major crops grown in the country depend on the chemicals. The dependence on certain crops like rice, rubber and tea is more than 90 percent.
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An ice cream seller is selling ice cream.
The Yala planting season, which lasts from May to August, was felt almost immediately after the April ban went into effect. The Verité survey showed that farmers were expecting a reduction in harvests because of the ban. Half of them were worried that their crop yield would fall.
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There was a tense era in U.S.-China relations. The two powers are at odds as they compete for influence and technology in other countries. The main fronts in U.S.-China relations are listed here.
Pacific dominance. The U.S. has sought to widen its alliances in the region as China has built up its military presence. Taiwan is a democratic island that the Communist Party considers to be Chinese territory. It could change the regional order if the U.S. intervenes there.
It is possible to trade. The trade war is on hold. The Biden administration has continued to protest China's economic policies and has imposed tariffs on Chinese goods.
Technology. There are still plenty of U.S. tech companies doing business in China despite internet giants being shut out. China needs to achieve technological self-reliance according to Mr. Xi.
People formed lines outside of shops to get basic items such as milk powder and kerosene after food prices went up. Mr. Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency to regulate prices. The government introduced import restrictions to deal with the foreign exchange crunch.
The government is easing the policy, but it is not clear if the farmers will get the neededfertilizer in time. The Maha planting season lasts from September to March.
The damage to agriculture and agriculture-related exports is so great that it will take some time for the country to recover.
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A worker at a tea plantation in Sri Lanka.
It is not clear if the government will continue to subsidize the product, which made it more affordable for poorer farmers. Lalith Obeyesekere, the secretary-general of the Planters' Association of Ceylon, said that the price of urea had gone up in the global market so much that farmers would have to pay five times what they used to.
Mr. Obeyesekere said that the government has decided to import chemical fertilizers. We will not get subsidized fertilizers now.
Tea planters had feared that the harvest could shrink by as much as 40 percent, but still hoped that subsidized fertilizer would arrive in time. Tea makes up 10% of Sri Lanka's total exports and brings in over a billion dollars a year.
The tea planters and tea factory managers were afraid of angering the government at a vulnerable time. The tea production had fallen by 40 percent. He said there wasn't enough organicfertilizer in the country.
The tea plucking in Ratnapura used to be 35 kilo a week, but now it is less than 25 kilo a week. I can see that the harvest is decreasing.
Aanya and Mujib reported from New Delhi.
