Monday, October 8, 2018

It’s time to reverse years of colonization - re forestation is the answer to get back to one third of our land as forest cover


– it’s regressive, in this day and age of climate change. where priority should be survival of the species!

The demons have finally come home to roost. Years of colonization and transfer of people from place to place with promises of riches have finally shown the great LIE that has fooled generations of our hapless countrymen.

You just have to look at the present President’s family for examples. His father moved from Gampaha District to Polonnaruwa, as he was given some land, and see where they all are. They have ESCHEWED the land and have made their fortune in every area, but farming, while the farmers have not improved their quality of life, having to deal with the likes of one of them, who rules the paddy price by default and size of his purse and mill, of course at the farmer’s expense.

Why is the farmer putting up with this shit? He is being fooled to believe his property has to be tilled, otherwise it will be taken away. So he cannot sell his land and find better means of living, he cannot earn enough on the land, and so he is a PRISONER of his own making, by holding onto the land.

Look at all the people in Sri Lanka who don’t own any land, just maybe enough space for a house. They are the most mobile people, who take the opportunities offered and are rising up the economic ladder. Why is it so hard to see this?

Land has to be economically farmed, it has to be professionally farmed to maximize output even if it is organic. Peasant farming cannot even dream of producing in the efficient quantity to keep a family alive, let alone use that precious land to its maximum. In marginal farming, you have to contend with animals, unpredictable weather, fluctuating prices, money lenders and I can go on and on, as I have been there done that. In efficient farming, you have an educated person managing a larger piece of land, farming it efficiently and managing risk, something that the average so called farmer has no clue in doing.

No one wants to admit that colonization was an utter failure, making peasants enslaved in lands that are not productive, and people thinking they are farmers, when they are probably extremely capable at other professions, but were not directed at what they were best at. Now it is time to find out each person’s strengths and help them find their vocation, as we have the resources to do so, and we have the vacancies that need to be filled desperately, when we are able to match these skills. We have to stop importing workers and instead move people from the land to the jobs that are available, otherwise we will create a permanent impoverished class, made worse by climate change, while at the same time seeing the foreign workers make hay while the sun shines due to our stupidity and at our EXPENSE! 

Are our leaders so blind to this?

6 comments:

Ratmale,Minneriya,Sri Lanka said...

Today's Nobel Prize announcement is very time critical as the Swedish Nobel Committee have the vision to put back on the front burner the issue of need for new technology, coupled with immediate action to negate climate change as the need of the hour.

I have therefore written this as a first step to grab people's attention in a new concept that would have been anathema yesterday, but essential today.

Let us hope the people who are slowest to see, the politicians in Diyawanna can for once move to together as one, and not play politics with the lives of our citizens and endorse a program of building homes immediately where the jobs are instead of wasting money building houses in the jungles!

Anonymous said...

Everything in Sri Lanka is wasteful, as nothing is done out of common sense, only out of deluded sense of entitlements

Anonymous said...

If Sri Lanka is just 10% as good as Holland in agricultural productivity they can be self sufficient with less than half the present land under cultivation, so it is easy to do as long as people who are farming have a basic work ethic and listen to reason

Anonymous said...

Land loving Sinhala people have suffered most from the faults of their stupid leaders. The minorities thankfully who got no land are now much wealthier as they have pursued avenues that did not need any land and so are much wealthier owning a lot of valuable property in Colombo. So you are right the Sri Lankan politicians have done a dis service to the people they gave land to, as they did not even give them freehold title, which they could sell and move out if they wanted to. They are now slaves to their land living in poverty

Anonymous said...

Its crazy, most of the heads of households of colonists are not working at home, they come home at weekends or once a month. Many work in Colombo, but cannot afford to live there, so they are seperated from their families forever, thanks to Colonization

Anonymous said...

this colonization scheme may have made sense when there were food shortages and overpopulation, but now in the new era of population control and shrinkage combined with material abundance it's time to bring the colonists back in. Let the wilds continue to be wild. the wildlife and the minorities will prosper unless the Sinhalese discard their religious beliefs