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As Sri Lanka’s short-lived plan to transform itself into an “organic utopia” collapsed last month, a diplomatic dispute with China over a fertiliser shipment threatened the debt-laden island nation’s hunt for a lifeline to shore up its crisis-hit economy as it stares down the barrel of a default.
Colombo’s ban on pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers, which came into effect in May, was fuelled by concerns for citizens’ health, according to the strongman populist president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Critics, however, saw the halt on imports as an attempt to preserve fast-dwindling foreign-exchange reserves, which have slid to US$2.3 billion from US$7.5 billion when his ultranationalist government came to power nearly two years ago.
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