More (And More) Of The Same!
By Emil van der Poorten –July 10, 2016
Emil van der Poorten
A friend recently drew my attention to the fact that there had been a tripartite agreement signed between the Coconut Research Institute, the University of Peradeniya and Fonterra, the dairy products conglomerate, to increase milk production in coconut plantations, particularly those owned by smallholders.
To say I was bemused by this would be an understatement and let me tell you why.
This tripartite project, it is claimed, is intended to run dairy cattle under coconut and is being touted as some kind of ground-breaking initiative.
Half a century ago, at least, the possibilities of enhancing the incomes of coconut growers through mixed farming with cattle and sheep was investigated and a variety of exotic pasture grasses introduced (Brachiaria brizantha and Brachiaria ruziziensis among others) systems of fertilizer application developed to prevent one growing and producing at the expense of the other and associated issues dealt with. There was a record kept of this research and these trials and I would be interested to know what became of it and, if it is still not around, why it isn’t.
People like Dr. Appadurai of the Faculty of Agriculture at the Peradeniya University did some really valuable, if sometimes controversial, work in the field at the time and there has to be, at least, some part of all of that significant information compiled by the Department of Veterinary Science in Peradeniya, the Department of Animal Production and Health and an assortment of trade and agricultural entities still available. But when the CRI is headed by a septuagenarian who, it had to be by coincidence, was a schoolmate and good buddy of the father of the Minister who appointed him and the lead man on the Fonterra side probably knows as much about cattle as I do about advanced rocket science, what the hell can one expect?
As for the academic actively involved in this abomination, I am at a loss for words to explain his involvement.
However, it must be admitted that the first two mentioned share a most important qualification: they were both Mahinda Rajapaksa stooges. And that should qualify them, eminently, for positions of responsibility and authority under the Ohey Palayang dispensation don’t you think? In fact, it is one of the less well guarded secrets that the Fonterra official was hired by the dairy products behemoth, coincidentally I am sure, at a time when a conduit to the Presidential Palace was worth its weight in gold and, seemingly, paid in similar coin. Checking on what Prof. had to say with regard to this individual’s conduct in the matter of the post mortems held into the cold-blooded executions of the Action Contre Le Faim workers in Mutur might also prove instructive. Anyone interested in this piece of work could probably still access that information by resorting to the World Wide Web. But, oh, Professor had to be a Tiger because he was a Tamil and despite the fact that he had to flee Sri Lanka in order to escape a death sentence issued by the leader of the afore-mentioned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Mr. Prabhakaran. As for this individual’s conduct with regard to the four doctors in Nanthikadal hospital at the time of Prabhakaran’s last stand, shall we say that the primary command of the Oath of Hippocrates – “Do no harm by word or deed’ – hardly seems to have been his guiding light.
