Pepper and cinnamon:

The spice of life!

A well grown cinnamon plantation. Pic: Sarath Siriwardane, Kalutara Dist. Rowingn Cor.

Cinnamon peelers

Workers peeling raw cinnamon

The drying process

Processed cinnamon tied up in bundles and ready for sale

Cinnamon is the fourth largest foreign exchange earner, next to tea rubber and coconut. For cinnamon to come to this stage and to be exported, a lot of handwork goes in. The first stage where cinnamon has to be peeled by cinnamon peelers is arduous.Peelers lament that they are a forgotten breed undergoing immense hardship and a small monetory compensation, barely enough for them to survive. This is the lot of cinnamon peelers.... The Sunday Observer spoke to some of them.

Adding varieties of spices to get different flavours is done by caterers, housewives and cooks all over the world. According to agriculturists, spices are mostly grown in the Asian region, especially in tropical countries, like Sri Lanka.

The climate and soil in many parts of the island are suitable to cultivate spices. Pepper, cinnamon, mustard and saffron are some of them.

The manufacturing process of spices is not seen by many eventhough Sri Lanka exports spices to many countries.

A spice cultivator, 72-year-old David Appuhamy of Maggona in the Kalutara District said Sri Lanka has over five lakhs of acres of spice cultivation.

“Cinnamon is the major spice that is cultivated. Over 200,000 people are engaged in the cultivation of cinnamon and the processing industry,”.

Agriculture Department statistics reveal that cinnamon is cultivated in Ahungalla, Kosgoda, Uragaha, Galle, Matara, Elpitiya, Avissawella , Kotiyakumbura, Ratnapura , Mathugama , Kalutara and Eheliyagoda.

The book on “Sri Lanka’s Traditional Exports” says that cinnamon is the fourth largest foreign exchange earner in the country next to tea, rubber and coconut.

The book also describes how the country’s first cinnamon plant was found. A clan of early settlers in the island, the Veddhas found the first cinnamon plant in a thick jungle, in a village called Abayapura in Mahiyangana.

The book also reveals that it was a Veddha member who first tasted a piece of a green skin of a cinnamon plant. The skin gave a different taste and later the tree became popular among villagers.

Processing cinnamon

There is a beautiful story from the processing cinnamon up to the selling point. After cutting down matured cinnamon trees, they are brought to the factory. Workers peel the smooth green outer layer from the cinnamon stick. Thereafter the thick brownish skin is peeled with a sharp knife. The peeled cinnamon skin is dried in the sun. During rainy days, the skin is dried in large rooms.

The peeled skin is gathered together in different sizes of six to eight feet and bundled before sending to the market.

Cinnamon is exported to England, USA, Canada, Japan and Australia.

If anybody visits a cinnamon producing area, he could see how cinnamon peelers spend their lives. Although each cinnamon peeler earns between Rs. 700 – Rs. 900 a day, they lead a pathetic life. Some cinnamon peelers who are married have no permanent houses to live. What they earn is spent on their daily provisions. They say that they cannot work anywhere else as they have devoted their whole life in this industry and have no time to do any other part time job, as cinnamon peeling was time consuming.

The Sunday Observer last week visited a remote village off Maggona, a large cinnamon producing area. The village is about 15 km from the main Maggona junction. We had to visit the village on motor cycles and also on foot. The narrow roads are not motore. Large pot holes were seen every where on the road.

A villager who is also a owner of a cinnamon plantation, 56-year-old Gunasiri Gamlath said he was a cinnamon peeler and earns small income.

He said traders from Colombo visit his village and collect the products that are processed.

“If the Government intervenes, we could sell our products for better prices”.

Gunasiri also lamented the deplorable state of the roads that lead to his village as no one pays attention to the development of these roads.

Cinnamon peelers

A longstanding cinnamon peeler, 27-year-old Muthumani Shantha Siva of Ahungalla said he has been engaged in the industry for the past 12 years and there are about 30 cinnamon peelers in the factory where he works.

“We work in groups and each group consists of about three to four cinnamon peelers. We have no duty hours. Sometimes we have to report for duty even on Poya days.

We could earn the day’s payments only if we report for work. When we fall sick, we have to take loans for medicine”.

He said his group members have to visit the estates and cut down cinnamon trees. Thereafter , the skins have to be peeled, dried and bundled. Shantha said cinnamon peelers were leading pathetic lives and wanted the authorities , at least the officials of the Divisional Secretariats to visit their factories and listen to their woes. Nimal Shantha who is also a cinnamon peeler lamented that they were undergoing hardship.

He said he has been in the business for the past 10 years and there is no improvement in the lives of hundreds of cinnamon peelers.

Thirty-five-year-old V.P. Sugathapala said they have no proper income and wanted the authorities to register cinnamon peelers in the area Divisional Secretariat, so that they could at least obtain bank loans to construct houses to spend at a time of emergency. He said there is no job security for cinnamon peelers and requested the authorities to visit their factories at least once in three months, so that they could see the pathetic living conditions of cinnamon peelers.

A.K.