No more scars of destruction:

Kilinochchi agri business flourishes

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

Kilinochchi is where the most crucial battles took place during the war against terrorism. This was the most important ground for the LTTE. The LTTE leadership knew losing Kilinochchi would mean the first step towards its defeat.

Maj.Gen. Jagath Dias with senior Army officers and soldiers on January 2, 2009 the day they rescued Kilinochchi (File photo)

Liberating kilinochchi was a giant step by the army towards victory. Despite the gruelling battle then, there remains no physical scars of a battle against terrorism today.

Kilinochchi is one of the major agrarian cultivation destinations in the island from the pre-historic times. Iranamadu Tank, Kanakampikai Kulam (Pond), and Kilinochchi Kulam are the major irrigation source for paddy and various other cultivations.

Following the complete resettlement of the district farmers have started their cultivations and despite recent drawbacks by natural calamities the agriculture is flourishing in this once devastated land. A community leader and a prominent farmer Shanmugam Mahalingam hailing from Rathnapuram (a GN Division in Kilinochchi) explained what the farmer's life was today in the re-emerged Kilinochchi.

"At present in my village alone there are 200 farmer families as members of the small association we have established," said Mahalingam who is the chairperson of this Farmer Association. "This community organisation was established a long time ago but with the troubles of terrorism we could not function. Following the resettlement we re-established it," he said.

Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera

S. Thanabalasundaram

Shanmugam Mahalingam

They get tractors and machinery to plough and transport harvest as well as fertiliser, water pumps and other agriculture equipment from the Department of Agrarian Services. It is through this Farmer Association that these goods get distributed among the farmer communities of the Rathnapuram village. "Our membership is not only paddy farmers. Those who cultivate

vegetables and fruits in home plots are also in the society," he said. Farmers in this part of the country cultivate using irrigation water in April-May season. Mainly grown are other crops such as vegetables, fruits and few other cereal crops. In the Maha season they cultivate paddy using rain water.

"Today we are able to sell our harvest to private traders as well and they come from Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Vavuniya and even from Colombo with their lorries. Some farmers sell their harvest to the Paddy Marketing Board and the Agrarian Services Department too," Mahalingam said.

These farmers cultivated even when these areas were under the LTTE but "We were unable to sell any of our harvest as there were no transport facilities and road network conditions were very poor" he said.

Brinjals, Tomatoes, green chillies, pepper, kohila, papaw, plantains, cabbage, turnip, snakegaurd, wetakolu are grown in these lands in large quantities. Every day there is a small fair in the villages and the farmers say that they have no major problems in selling their products now. "Actually the main issue we have now is not having a standard price to sell our products. There should be a minimum limitation in price, otherwise the prices can go down to very low levels," he said.

Generally, a farmer is able to get 70 kilograms of paddy per acre and farmers here grow varieties of rice such as Samba, Keeri Samba, Suduru Samba.

Farmers who grow vegetables in large scale collect around 100 kg of vegetables each harvest time, said Mahalingam. Those who grow vegetables in home gardens collect about 10 - 15 kg.

Fruits such as passion fruit, oranges, guava etc are grown abundantly. Paddy is cultivated in about 200 acres in Rathnapuram. Some farmers have five acre plots. "We get water to cultivate from the Iranamadu tank. Water is not a problem. We get agriculture equipment and some of our farmers have purchased them as well. But we need more of certain types of agri machines,"added Mahalingam.

"We mostly use the harvest machine to collect the paddy harvest. In our village as well as in neighbouring villages there are people who own these harvesting machines. And farmers use them on rent during the harvesting season," he said. It is the same practice that happens among the farmers be it south or north.

While the agriculture is growing in to its greener pastures, trade and commerce in Kilinochchi are on a steady growth. As it is still in its inception the growth does face problems but the growth does not get slow.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Kilinochchi district Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Agriculture S. Thanabalasundaram explained the present situation of commercial activities in the area. The Chamber of Commerce was established in Kilinochchi around eight years ago but due to disturbing situations caused by terrorism that prevailed in the country before 2009 it was not properly functioning. "Now, as peace returned we have started properly functioning with 250 members in the association," said Thanabalasundaram. As Thanabalasingham explained around 45 investors have already applied to start their businesses. So businesses will come in to Kilinochchi in due course.

"Most of the people in Kilinochchi are farmers and its a crowd among them who become traders. Last year many farmers faced a loss in their harvest due to heavy rains and that had affected their purchasing power. It is one of the persisting problems in the commerce sector. So many of those traders are facing difficulty in repaying the loans they have taken," he said. The ILO and the Post harvest Technology Institute in Anuradhapura are helping to upgrade the knowledge and skills of the industrialists and farmers in Kilinochchi, he said.

"Kilinochchi is the agricultural hub. So among the districts of the Northern Province Kilinochchi lacked agriculture and trade coordination for a long time," he said. Addressing this gap, on 26, 27 and 28 July a trade fair was organised in Kilinochchi which was held at the Kilinochchi Central College grounds.

"To support the farming and fishing industries trade fair we got involved with organising an agri and trade fair that was held from 25 - 27 July. Many companies - local and foreign private companies and farmer organisations - joined. In kilinochchi there are about 116 farmer organisations. There are about 1,537 small scale business ventures. The local people had exposure to better technology," said Major General Udaya Perera, Security Forces Commander of Kilinochchi. Along with all the Government and private institutes Sri Lanka Army contributed in a major way to organise this huge event where public, private, local and foreign partners participated. Explaining why such a step is essential for Kilinochchi, Maj.Gen. Perera said that out of the total population in the district over 26,470 are farmer families. "In 2010 irrigated land was 10,327 hectares. In 2011 it went up to 22,616 hectares. Paddy harvest was 5,120 MT in 2010 and in 2011 it went up to 45,633 MT," he said.

What was the reaction of the investors doing business in this area where the infrastructure is still developing? Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera said that it's a matter of time. "The reason why the investors did not come in at first was that the infrastructure facilities which are present now were not in until recent past. Now if investors come in they can see the improvements and infrastructure in place. And I'm sure with the present situation any one would like to come," he said.

In Kilinochchi the road network is coming up very well. Now the railway is operating up to Kilinochchi. And latest is the Iranamadu airfield bringing the air connectivity to facilitate the profit driven business community.

Electricity is not an issue in Kilinochchi. The Grid station was opened recently and the area has uninterrupted power supply.

Considering water supply, the biggest water resource of the Northern Province is in Kilinochchi which is based on the Iranamadu tank. "There is a fine intelligent labour force in Kilinochchi. It is a matter of fine tuning the labour force. This human resource was not tapped for the last so many years. The mentality of these people is that they do not want to go out of the area. The mentality and the culture is such that they want to retain here. These people have not gone to free trade zones in Katunayake or Colombo garments or anywhere," said Maj.Gen. Udaya Perera explaining the community situation of the area. Understanding this situation a leading textile giant have become the first to set up their factories in. This is followed by few other industrialists and according to the Kilinochchi Chamber of Commerce a list of investors have expressed their interest in doing business on this promising land.