North-East to herald self-sufficiency in fruits, vegetables

by Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Sri Lanka is to be self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables in 2013. With the end of the war, tens of thousands of acres of fertile land that were inaccessible are now being made available to farmers for agriculture and other development projects.

As a result, Sri Lanka is now in a position to be self-sufficient in fruit and Vegetables in less than two years.

Self-sufficiency in the agricultural sector would save millions of foreign exchange to the country enabling the government to pump the money into other development projects.

Director, Re-awakening Project, T. H. Sugathadasa

CIC Agri Businesses, Keerthi B. Kotagama

Former Chairman SLFVPPE, Sarath de Silva,

Traditionally, North East provinces had been largely dependent on agriculture and fisheries with the East more focused on paddy farming and the North with a mix of paddy farming and cultivation of vegetables, tobacco and subsidiary food crops such as chillies and onions. For centuries the North-East have been self-sufficient in fruits and vegetables. It was the brutality of the LTTE that destroyed the livelihoods of the people in the area. In addition, the two provinces had their own industries and innovative products to back up their agricultural requirements and unemployment ratio too was very low. With the war intensifying and the LTTE putting more pressure on the civilians, the lifestyle of the North-East population was forced to change from being an independent self-governing family lifestyle to a family that had to depend on handouts and doles. With the end of the war, the Government has already completed resettlement. These people are provided with land and all incentives and the civilians in the North-East are once again dreaming of the glorious days ahead.

Already, the fisheries sector is back in business as restrictions on fishing have been cleared and fish from North-East is now available in the South. Grapes grown in Jaffna are already sold in Colombo.

Former Chairman, Sri Lanka Fruit and Vegetable Producers, Processors and Exporters Association, (SLFVPPE) Sarath de Silva says that with the current resettlement programs the North-East will bloom in less than two years bringing economic benefits to the whole country.

Considered an expert in the field, he says that several local and foreign food-packaging companies have already signed contracts to provide their services.

Very soon we will see agricultural products from the North-East in our leading supermarket chains," he said.

Silva, who is also the President of the International Food Stuff Company and leading exporter of fruits and vegetables said that the people in the North and East are very resilient and they want to be independent."They are proud and do not want to be dependent on handouts for a long time," he said.

Biggest dairy

The Government, in a bid to assist the farmers, has provided numerous development projects running into several billions. De Silva, who is also a Director of the Lankanputhra Bank, said that they too want to be a part of the development, and have opened several branches in these areas.

CIC Agri Businesses is planning to invest Rs. 550 million to establish one of the biggest dairies in Sri Lanka in the liberated Eastern Province. This is a joint venture with Ministry of Agriculture and Mahaweli and land would be utilized.

Managing Director/CEO, CIC Agri Businesses, Keerthi B. Kotagama said that they had been always looking at the North East for investment opportunities and liberation of the Eastern province prompted them to make this investment. CIC has already invested Rs. 70 million and production has commenced and the total project would be completed in two years.When completed the project would produce over 20,000 litres of fresh milk per month. The company would also introduce the out growers where over 2,000 families would be provided with cattle with the undertaking that CIC would purchase fresh milk from them. Technical assistance and micro finance too would be arranged and it is expected that each family would be able to earn around Rs. 20,000 from this project. They would also import 200 cattle suitable for Sri Lankan climate from Australia for breeding purposes.

Better yields

Sri Lanka spends over Rs. 18 billion per annum for import of milk powder and projects of this nature would help the country to reduce this. For better yields the farmers would use genetically modified seeds, new machinery and new techniques. Plastic containers would be used to minimize post-harvest losses. The direct train services to Colombo that would be a reality soon would help further reduce post-harvest loss and also help bring down prices. Director Reawakening Project, Ministry of Nation Building T. H. Sugathadasa said that they are successfully implementing a novel concept for the paddy sector where use of fertilizer and water is very low. "This SRI project which was implemented over 10 years ago but was abandoned due to influence from multi-national fertilizer companies," he said.

Under SRI system, paddy cultivation could be done with minimum water and this system is most appropriate for the North-East as they have only limited water. "Earlier, we were spending large sums of money for inorganic fertilizers and chemicals but under SRI system we are using only organic manure and pesticides. Therefore, now paddy cultivation is more profitable for us," said a farmer from Trincomalee, S. Rasaratnam.

"It was very successful and I obtained 283 bushels of paddy per acre. When we cultivate paddy in the normal way, the maximum harvest we get about 120 bushels," he added.

Systems should be put in place to protect the Jaffna producer. The middleman should not be given the opportunity to exploit them, said Chairman Ceylon National Chamber of Industries, Newton Wickramasuriya.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer he said that Jaffna producer is slowly but surely awakening and all assistance and guidance should be provided to him. "This is specially evident in the agriculture and the fisheries sectors," he said.

Former President, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nawaz Rajabdeen said that one key factor to the success of the agriculture in the North East is a rail link to Colombo. "Very soon this void would be filled and then yesterday's vegetables that were harvested in North would be in Pettah market and on the shelves at Cargills, Keells and Laugfs supermarkets the next day," he promised. This will also create a market for the farmer that will result in regular cash flow to them. Sri Lanka is considered the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, and when the North-East is in full bloom it would be named as the Dream of the Indian Ocean", he enthused.

The Government has re-settled 59,608 displaced families in Batticaloa,Trincomalee, Mannar, Ampara and Jaffna Divisional Secretariat (DS) divisions during the past few months.

According to figures, 35, 766 families have been re-settled in Batticaloa DS division while 22,068 families have been re-settled in Trincomalee DS division. The Government has re-settled 669 families in Mannar, 51 families in Ampara and 1,054 families in Jaffna DS divisions.

The number of persons displaced in 2009 is 288,938. Of these total number of displaced persons, 224,394 persons have been sheltered in six Relief Villages set- up in the Vavuniya district.