Khapra beetle and Russian credit line!
December 21, 2017, 10:07 pm
Sri Lanka's tea industry had been hit hard in recent times from several quarters. The drought brought trouble for tea and even more trouble for the paddy farmer. The knee-jerk ban of the herbicide glyphosate falsely claiming it to cause kidney miles away from the tea plantations, in the Rajarata, was another setback. Then the Russians discover a Khapra Beetle in the tea, an insect that feeds on grain and not on tea. It is a native Indian 'Kallathoni' which spread to other countries by hitching rides on exported grain.
Although the Khapra beetle is widely found in India, this is not the case for Sri Lanka. H. J. Banks, writing in 1977 in the Journal of Stored Products Research (volume 13, p183) includes references that suggest that the country was free of the insect, although reports of detection of the insect exist. However, Western countries have routinely (and unfairly) classified Sri Lanka with India, to Sri Lanka's detriment. H. J. Banks' review was in 1977, the year when the free market was launched in Sri Lanka. The relaxation of all controls in the name of the free market has led to many difficulties. To cap it all, a bridge to connect Sri Lanka with India has been proposed by a neo-con government without the slightest concern for the integrity of Sri Lanka's biosphere.
The key to Khapra-beetle control is ensuring its absence in grain. It is actually quite easy to keep grain free of the Khpara beetle. Simple and inexpensive irradiation of grain is all that is needed. Such irradiation will also remove all types of weevils and bugs, and save perhaps 40% of the grain crop in tropical countries from becoming unfit for use. Unfortunately, here again baseless public fear has been fanned against "radiation". Just as vaccination or fluoridation is feared and opposed by some, irradiation is rejected in many communities. Instead, Methoprene which is an insect growth regulator is used in North America and must be applied at the larvae stage.
However, although controls in Sri Lanka have been rapidly relaxed since 1977, that it has taken two decades to detect a Khapra beetle in a Sri Lankan export is remarkable. The detection is in tea, and not in an exported grain! It has not been established that the beetle was found in tea itself. There is the likelihood that the beetle joined the Cargo during the voyage and did not even originate in Sri Lanka.
An even more interesting suggestion is that the Russians are merely expressing their displeasure over Sri Lanka's continued neglect of the Russian market, as well as the recent ban on Asbestos imports from Russia. Neither this government, nor the previous government had been a regular client except for controversial MIG deals of the previous regime, or the bizarre purchase of an old Russian ship by the present government, going against the recommendations of naval experts. Using a Russian credit line is essentially a form of barter. The powerful wheeler dealers in governments cannot conveniently collect commissions from such barters. They prefer shady tenders passed through Singapore or Dubai.
However, if the President of Sri Lanka is serious, we can truly profit from the Russian credit line by importing much that Sri Lanka needs, instead of buying armaments, planes and ships which are ultimately an enormous drain on the country. A large percentage of the nitrogen in the bodies of everyone living today comes from synthetic urea, essential to all agricultural sectors. Even the organic farmer secretly adds it to his plot to avoid a deficit! Today Sri Lanka is facing a grave shortage of Urea. Russia is a leader in Urea production, and the Russian credit line can be used for Urea. Another essential item is phosphate mineral fertilizer. This too is produced by Russia, and furthermore, the Russian fertilizer is one of the cleanest mineral fertilizers in the world as it is virtually free of cadmium and other heavy-metal contaminants. Sri Lanka should regularly buy their mineral fertilizer for her tea!
The Russians are also world leaders in the production of liquified natural gas. The government is struggling over the coming energy crunch, and two ministers have once again proposed two new coal power plants. They surely know how the previous coal plants made many individuals extremely rich, by way of tenders, cancellation of tenders and relaunching of tenders, refitting of plants etc. The net effect is, we have two lame-duck coal power plants located in Sampur (Samapura) and Norochchollai (Horagolla). I have added the more meaningful old Sinhala place names as they make sense, not only to Sinhala speakers, but also to Tamil speakers, as I found out by asking a few individuals. The politics of coal power plants in these two places is shrouded in illegalities, just as the names of these places have never been properly gazetted when the old names were suppressed.
The justification for coal is based on the claim that there is a large cheap supply and that a modern "clean-coal" technology is available. These are false claims. Even in Canada we only have experimental operations, e.g., as in the Boundary Dam coal Power Station in Saskatchewan. Canada is trying, at great cost, to utilize its coal deposits. But Sri Lanka has no coal, and no track record of good pollution management given its neglect of even urban garbage directly visible to everyone. The coal-pollution is out of sight, out of mind, and will certainly be mismanaged
Furthermore, we are already under a cloud of toxic rain (containing cadmium, nitrous and sulphurous toxins and particulate dust) from many poorly run coal power stations along the coast of Tamil Nadu. When coal is said to costs "only" about Rs 18 per unit of electricity today, they have ignored the enormous health costs to the nation. The Indian tragedy is there for us to see.According to a report in the Scientific American in March 2013, as many as 115,000 people die in India each year from coal-fired power-plant pollution, costing India about $4.6 billion, even though coal is the fuel of choice and Indian energy demands are skyrocketing. But the actual costs are incalculable, since the air quality in Indian cities have been nose diving, making life in many cities a nightmare.
Since Sri Lanka is a signatory to the climate accord, it cannot turn to coal. This author was one of the first to hail the Rajapaksa government's increase in energy Tariffs in 2013 (as it made Solar energy more competitive. See Island-http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=78416). I strongly urged the government in 2009 to adopt solar, wind and dendro technologies aggressively, and circulated in Colombo a movie on Solar energy. Nuclear energy from thorium is a clean safe energy but Sri Lanka has no experience with it. They are all part of long-term strategies. If there is a need for a short-term energy strategy, then Sri Lanka may look at liquified gas from Russia, using its little used credit line, and at the same time kick start the stalled but important tea sales to Russia.
Chandre Dharmawardana
Canada
