Green Technology for a sustainable earth:

Time to think and act

by Prof. K.D.N. Weerasinghe

The energy demand in Sri Lanka at present heavily depends on fossil fuels (Import 90,000 Barrels/day, at 123 $/barrel, expending 25 Billion Rs.which is 65.16 Rs/day/person. In 2011, the oil import bill of Sri Lanka had risen to US$ 4.63 billion, a record high in the country's history. This is a 53.4 percent. Year on year increase compared to just US4 3.10 billion which the country spent on importing oil during the year 2010. This is nearly 8.5 percent. Of the GDP and it was US $ 59 billion in 2011, according to IMF estimates.

With respect to total energy consumption, still the largest energy production in Sri Lanka is linked to the biomass based sources. Among Sri Lanka's energy demand spectrum today, biomass takes the largest share of 59 p.c. Nearly 95 percent. Of households use wood for fuel, and 86 percent. Of inhabitants obtain wood from the forest for free.

Hydro power

The contribution of hydro power is about 8 percent. Of the total energy need. Even though Sri lanka transforms to be the middle income country and service and industrial sectors going to be the main contributor to GDP, culture and life pattern of Sri Lankans are closely associated with Agriculture and Green way of living linked to Buddhist philosophy.

At present, agriculture contributes about 13 percent to the country's GDP and employs about 33 percent of its workforce.

Sri Lankan home garden systems are one of the world's best and richest enriched with 200-300 species of plants, including forest species, horticultural crops, cash crops (pulses, yams vegetables, spices, medicinal plants etc.) which are concentrated in 0.25 ha in most cases.

It is a sustainable nature conserving green living system to conserve natural resources (soil, water, land, air) along with bio diversity.

The recent development programs under the Mahinda Chintana has introduced a number of programs to develop and intensify the home garden systems through the programs such as Gemi Deriya, Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu (Let's cultivate and develop)

The most appropriate micro level green options at this juncture are to further consolidate technologies at homegardens to convert them to independent energy and food security systems, with zero wastes. Such an approach helps the rural poor to reach their economic independence through nature conservation and food security.

Homegarden intensification and technology adoption is the most appropriate Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measure, with less carbon and water footprint to mitigate the escalating disaster situations due to global warming.Predominance of small and marginal farmers, and increasing land fragmentation, are social scenarios observed in the Asia Pacific countries including Sri Lanaka.

The appropriate strategies suggested by UNDP, to overcome this situation are the need to generate technologies suited to smallholders, to enhance labour productivity by optimising the resources utilisation in respect to land, water, and energy sectors.

Linking farmers with markets, strengthening post-harvest management, agro processing, value addition, enhancing food availability for the poor through market, trade and distribution reforms, safety nets and integrated on-farm-off-farm - non-farm employment and income strengthening bio-security by integrating safe and green agricultural technologies animal husbandry, fisheries etc. are the constituent components to achieve the objectives.

The technology aspects to cover agriculture and agro based industries with less carbon and water footprints can be broadly listed under the following areas:

1.Agro meteorological aspects (knowledge base development by mixing indigenous knowledge with new technologies, to cope with changing climate scenarios; adapt. Agro meteorological forecast and alarming systems to mitigate disasters)

2.Post harvest processing and Food technology,(Food processing and preservation technologies for value addition)

3.Green technologies (Organic farming). (Home garden intensification with crops livestock fisheries integration, agro forestry)

4.Appropriate non-conventional energy, and energy saving options (Bio mass, solar, wind, micro hydropower) for self sufficiency in energy

5.Appropriate agronomical practices merging indigenous knowledge with new technologies (Phyto techniques), Agro Pastoral practices, Agro forestry

6.Water allocation, conservation (Drinking water purification technologies, Appropriate water saving irrigation practices (Crop from a drop)

The existing gaps to implement the proposed technologies come under the following broader areas which are to be further fine-tuned to suit the local situations.

1. Knowledge gap

The technological know-how and the knowledge of the identified technologies in most of the cases are available and are practised in different countries. However, the knowledge has to be collected and documented in simple terms to be understood by the laymen.

The local educational institutes, (schools, technical colleges, Universities), Government Departments, Provincial Councils Professional societies, private sector NGOs can integrate into the local technology innovation system in the knowledge acquisition, skills development and dissemination process.

Knowledge dissemination could be conducted through farmer schools, media and other communication modes. Village knowledge centres (demonstration and training centres or parks) could be established to facilitate this.

Such centres will assist schoolchildren to learn them and come out with new enterprising ideas; such ideas could be further researched and tested as University research development programs for the undergraduate and post graduate thesis work.

This will be a good platform for the academia, government and the society to integrate into a knowledge hub and local technology development program for the poor, for disaster mitigation and adaptation.

The practical and research knowledge will help educational establishments shape up their curricular and syllabuses.

Institutional and policy gap

The following policy advocacy and actions identified by the UNDP for the Asia pacific region could be highlighted to mitigate the above gap.

Accelerated agricultural productivity and income growth and inclusiveness to alleviate hunger, under nutrition and poverty, Research, technology and innovations for development with focus on the poor, especially the resource-poor farmers, Adequate public and private investment in agriculture and agricultural research, education and extension with focus on development, Institutional support for bridging yield, employment and income gaps,

Integrated management of natural resources, biodiversity, inputs and biotic and a biotic stresses, including trans boundary diseases, bio security, Fair trade, input-output pricing, ccess to domestic and international markets and management of market volatility, linking farmers with markets, producers' company, Climate change management - adaptation and mitigation of crop-animal-soil-water cycle distortions.

The writer is Senior Chair Professor, - Consultant Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Bangkok, Thailand.