While the government is not taking steps to get a fair price for coconut, draconian laws enacted on the pretext of protecting the coconut industry have affected rights of coconut growers, said Parakrama Jayatilake, President, Coconut Growers Association of Sri Lanka (CGASL) at its 15th AGM held at the BMICH last week.
He said that there are 700,000 coconut growers in the country and out of them more than 500,000 are poor farmers with a few trees. Most are unable to survive with the income yields due to low prices.
He said that, if coconut land does not yield sufficient returns, then it should be used for other purposes that yield sufficient profit that would sustain their living or these poor owners should be allowed to sell their land.
He said that one of the major hindrances against the coconut industry has been the growing import of palm oil and urged the government that a tax of either 28 % or Rs 40 per litre of imported palm oil be imposed.
Mr Jayatillake said that the other main problem is fertilizer prices and urged that a 50 kg bag of coconut fertilizer be given to the growers at the rate of Rs 1,000. He said that when the price of coconut is low and the margin of profit is thin, then the growers tend to skip the application of fertilizer, but if the fertilizer cost is less their profits would increase.
He blamed the government for not paying the same attention to coconut compared to tea and rubber. He said that coconut exports provide 2.6 % of foreign exchange while rubber was only 1.4 %. He said that coconut is the second highest foreign exchange earer among cash crops, it is also the second important food in the country, the first being rice but coconut is not given its due place.
Anton Fernando was inducted as the New President of CGASL. Demonstrating how these draconian laws are ruthlessly applied, when a grower brought to the notice of the membership as to how the authorities are preventing the sale of a small block of coconut land, an official quoting the relevant law pointed out that the sale is irregular and such other matters have been referred to the CID.
Minister of State Plantations Management and Development Milroy Fernando, the chief guest, suggested that state-owned plantation land should be given to the private sector as they could yield more profit than the state sector.
He said that the hard work of the private owners of coconut land could be experienced in places like Wanathavilluwa in the Puttalam District where sometime ago these lands were abandoned as barren and uncultivable, but now have been turned into flourishig coconut land that could fetch high land prices.
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