Comments by CDW on Prof. Basnayake's posting.
Prof. Basnayake does not give data in support of the BFBF publicists who claim that
"this revolutionary product (BFBF) ...
can replace up to 50% of chemical fertilizer in major commercial crops,
and increases yields by up to 20-30%"
Dr. Basnayake does not address the outcomes of any
published BFBF trials, or trials of rhizobia inoculants.
Dr. Basnayake says "The simple statistical analysis over a longer period is much desired
than postage stamp field plot findings with controls. The live organic fertilizers take considerable
time to overcome toxicities and inhibitions left behind in these difficult soils.
If so, trials must be conducted on plots which had been left fallow and allowed to
become virgin land? This actually questions the whole methodology of the BFBF trials, the Rhizobia-inoculant
and indeed most field trials, rather than supporting any of them.
We note that the control of pH, soil carbon, silicon, mg etc., with soil conditioning using dolomite,
wood ash, biochar, addition of humic matter etc., are all external
inputs as used in "green-revolution" approaches for soil remediation.
Traditional agriculture (no external inputs) also depletes
the soil within 3-5 years, and the land has to be left fallow for several years
for soil remediation, and then the shrub growth
burnt down, e.g., in Chena cultivation. See:
Long fallow periods: The key to sustenance of soil fertility, by MAP. De Silva,
SA. Kulasooriya & RP. Gunawardane, Plant and Soil volume 135, p 297 (1991)
When Dr. Basnayake says "The data available with NIFS could be very valuable to develop
site-specific biofertilizers" he is proposing future projects, and not providing evidence in support of
the the BFBF given to farmers in 2016 or rhizobia inoculants given out in 2010.
Hopefully, this data said to be "available at the NIFS" is better than those published in CABJ
now largely abandoned by even Dr. Seneviratne. However, such data should be available
in a peer reviewed journal, at least as supplementary material, for the scrutiny of the
scientific community.
We hope that the soil remediation using biochar that Dr. Basnayake is conducting will be
authenticated using
better designed field trials, and that the results of such trials (together
with trials where no biochar is used) will be made available in the peer-reviewed journal literature before
adoption in agricultureal use.
Dr. Basnayake says "I just like to make it very clear that organo-metallic compounds
(formed at very high temperatures) in urea, perhaps could be the major culprit in most of the health
issues faced in the world. The overall rates of biochemical reactions must be very rapid in these
compounds, although having very low concentrations, particularly in the absence of iron (ferrous).
In the above Dr. Basnayake is proposing a new hypothesis (or speculation) about
"most health issues faced in the world"!
All the impurities and components as well as their concentrations
in industrial urea can be determined very accurately using
plasma mass spectoscopy and other methods. No one can comment on this new theory of
what Dr. Basnayake calls "most health issues faced by the world".
He points out that "inorganic fertilizers" do not allow farmers to become rich.
We ask, will farmers become
rich with organic fertilizers with their lower yields, higher demand for manual work, more water,
land etc., per kg of harvest? Organic food serves a small niche market only. The wealth of a farmer
is determined by his capacity to market the product than anything else.
Dr. Basnayake gives an abstract of a paper by Gunadasa et al which seems to confirm the now well known
fact that the heavy metal concentrtions in the soil, water and grain in the CKDu-endemic areas area all
much below the danger thresholds indicated by the WHO. This fact has been confirmed many times as
seen in the bibliographies of the following articles which contain references to the work of
A Paranagama et al (2012),
Nanayakkara et al (2011), Kawakami Atlas of heavy metals in Sri Lankan soils (2014), Diyabalanage et al (2016),
Wanigasuriya et al (2016), etc., etc.
Nanayakkara et al, CKDu 2011
Fertilizer usage and cadmium
in soils, crops and food, J. Env. Geochemistry & Health, 2018
Possible links between groundwater geochemistry and chronic kidney disease of unknown
etiology (CKDu): an investigation from the Ginnoruwa region in Sri Lanka, Balasooriya et al,
Exposure and Health, 2019
As only the abstract of the Gamage article is given, what is new in it is not clear to us as yet.
Microbial fertilisers act by greatly increasing the population of specific groups of microbes
and strongly upsetting the normal microbial distribution found in virgin soils. According to CDW, this situation can
lead to the evolution of toxic microbes and the toxification of soils as well as the food chain.
Microbial fertilizers act by generating organic acids in the soil. According to CDW,
action of these acides on soils can release Cd, Pb, and other heavy metals trapped in insoluble soil particles
(e.g., in calcium phospahte crystallites) and increase heavy metal toxicity. Scant attention to this aspect of
microbial fertilizers has been given so far, partly becaause these fertilizers are still not
widely used and are not commercialized in most parts of the world