My absence of an age from blogging

I have had to field many upset and annoyed avid readers of my blog and explain my absence and to them I all I can say is I am sorry and will make my best effort to resume.

It has been a very trying couple of months, with the general principle of everything not going my way or as I had hoped and I have spent the past few months trying to get back into a system of normalcy having had to cope with many a trying circumstance, especially as it relates to produce and yield in all my farming activities, and made worse by the ever increasing costs of labor in farming and the corresponding decline in their productivity which only another farmer in SL can understand the meaning of.

The last straw was when we had to leave a third of our land fallow. All the farmers around me and myself were left with costs that exceeded the revenue from their paddy this season. It was so intense that there was a long line of people wanting to borrow money from me at rates in excess of 50% per annum. Needless to say I may lose the principle forgetting the interest, as they just had no real methodology in rational thinking to pay back.

This has now convinced me that rural farming as it is encouraged in Sri Lanka is just to keep the farmers impoverished, and another system of allocation of land and farming economical scales with less of the internecine warfare that takes place now is the only answer to higher yields and more productivity with actually a lower cost than is currently incurred and hence wasted due to the present system.

I have had to resort to a part time job to supplement my agricultural loss, and all this job does is to subsidize the loss. I have therefore to seek a more viable method of agriculture with the use of more intensive mechanization than what I have done so far along with the cultivation of a larger extent of land, along with the minimization of some of the risk factors such as water, and weather in the approach I take.

I have had problems in all the aspects of agriculture from problems with the dairy herd, to low yields in coconuts added to the unexpectedly dormant season for King Coconuts, added to the lower paddy crop, and the complete destruction of my banana cultivation by monkeys and the papaya cultivation by the mealy bug infestation took all the wind from my sails, and I went into reverse gear. The high staff turnover with the resulting training curve added to the fall in productivity. The economy is in a bad state, and with lower incomes and less money, people increased the level of stealing and the non payment of goods and services purchased. My neighbors were robbing my coconuts and selling them cheap to their other neighbors resulting in a lower turnover at my shop, as my customers bought the same coconuts, this time stolen at lower prices, which I could not possibly match.

It is not something that one likes to read, so I recoiled from relating the day to day misery on my blogs as it does not make a good story. I was waiting for some good news and it never came, and does not seem like coming for a long time.

Sri Lanka - "the stock market miracle"

A grove of Thambili plants in a sea of paddy

Suicides and attempted ones go unreported - a serious issue

Three of my staff had to leave at a moments notice one morning, as the brother of two and the cousin of one had committed suicide by taking poison, in the form of an easily available farm pesticide. He was 24 with a young wife and a child of a little over a year. He seems to be someone who was easily drawn to fights, and also abused alcohol. He had some disagreement with his wife and moved in temporarily with his parents leaving the wife at home in her village. Ironically, I last met the dead person, at the funeral of his maternal uncle, who had also died of suicide, consuming Kurator a crystal that is used to kill harmful subterranean pests that attack the roots of banana shoots and come up the trunk to kill the plant. This older person not married was an alcoholic.

Another boy of 15 committed suicide in the same village only a month ago by ingesting Gramoxone a weed killer. He, a friend of my staff, who again went for that funeral (going for a funeral of this nature means they are away for at least 7 days, as they wait on for the 7 day almsgiving) was the eldest of 5 boys who had to support his family by either mining sand from the river, an illegal activity or by cutting clay bricks prior to firing. He had apparently had a fight with his mother and done the deed, a mother who was rarely there for him, and his father absent out of town. At that tender age he commonly consumed alcohol, and this may have been a contributory factor in the seemingly senseless death, in a need for attention. I dread to think how the younger siblings are now coping with little care from parents.

When I learned about this and mentioned this to a neighbor in Ratmale, I was told that another girl about 18 had taken Kurator and was in a bad way in hospital. She is in a photo in one of my blogs, and so this tale of this problem seems to continue uncontrolled. I cannot put my finger into the causes, but just to say that we are a race of very passionate people who are easily roused, and also very brittle under criticism, and are easily upset for the slightest thing. A fight with the spouse of parent, an unhappy love affair or some short term financial crisis all seem to lead to this sort of event. Consumption of alcohol may also make the person more prone to depression exacerbating an already fragile situation.

The rate of suicide in Sri Lanka is one of the highest in the world. I am at loss to know how we can identify the signs, and take preventative measures. My work on the farm has been put on hold waiting for the week to be up for them to return. No doubt their explanation of the causes will come to light upon their arrival. A 52 year grandmother of 6 and mother of 7 has lost her2nd son. Her eldest and youngest work at my farm.

the end of the day

All taken in a space of a few minutes outside my verandah here

A reflective Poson Poya

I am spending a quiet Poson Poya holiday today at the farm in Godagama, Meegoda. It also happens to be a Sunday. Last year was more eventful at the Gal Vihare in Polonnaruwa and can be checked in entries in June 2008.

The early morning news, as the cows were milked, before the milk gets delivered to nearby houses around 6am, was that a month old calf that seemed quite healthy yesterday was found dead this morning, with us not knowing what the cause was. We now have to learn a way of taking the milk from the mother, as she would normally unlikely to give the milk unless the calf was around her.

One of the boys who works here, left at 5 am to go to his sister’s in Ibbagamuwa a few km past Kurunegala, as his father was also meeting up there from Ratmale in Polonnaruwa where I have a cabin. He will be back tomorrow. He has to take the bus to the main Bus stand in Pettah and then take the Dambulla or any bus that goes up that way. His total fare one way on the two legs will be about Rs120, and if he chooses to take a three wheel from the main road to the his sisters about 2km, that will be another Rs150. That is one irony in public transport, namely the bus is cheap for the whole distance, but the short distance home from the bus stop can cost more than the long journey.

Then it was string hoppers for breakfast, probably the last time it was made here was over 6 months ago, as I am usually not particular about my food, but Anula who comes during the mornings to clean the house and make the food for a couple of workers on the farm, offered to make it. So I had it with pol-sambol made from fresh coconuts, and a dhal curry gravy.

Then it was to cut the grass for the cattle, and plant some gotukola roots on a newly prepared bed. Yesterday I had got some cake for the staff who worked today, which they had with their tea at 11 and that was the work for the day. Geetha Sriyani who works in the shop was lucky as I close the shop on Poya days, and so she said she goes with her daughter to two temples during the course of the day, which she has not been to before. So she kind of explores new temples on Poya days, which I thought was very unique. She maintains there are so many temples around that it is not that difficult to find them, and this time she is going to a couple that are on top of rocks with a view of the area.

I went out and got all the English Sunday papers to relax for a change, and for those interested to know they are The Sunday Times, the Sunday Observer, Sunday Leader, Lakbima News, the Sunday Island, the Nation and Lakbima News. Now those readers overseas tell me you have 5 English Sunday Papers to read except of course if you are in the UK!

I then had boiled potato with skin, the small ones with butter for lunch with Katta Karawala, fried in Red Onions and Tomato, with fresh lime-juice from limes in the front yard. It was a very gloomy day all day with very little sun, and the time just flew by in time to post this entry and say good night. Tomorrow is another day, a heavy day as I have to deliver my produce from house to house in Colombo, right through till the evening.

Coconut palm being prepared to reroof the kitchen

the fallen dried up coconut palm collected and now soaking in the river overnight
I have to re roof the kitchen every two years with coconut palm thatching and here are some photos of it from the point the fallen palm is left to soak in the river overnight, and then taken out, first to split in two and then to weave and then dry. Finally stacking them awaiting roofing once we have the 300 we need.

splitting the soaked palm to make two sides to be thatched and used in pairs

all joining in the thatching

Drying the wet woven palms in the sun

Stacked up