Rubber to be grown in the North
Sri Lanka’s rubber industry established in the country during the colonial era is to expand to the North, a non-traditional area, as part of the new Master Plan for rubber development scheduled to be launched later this month. The Rubber Research Institute (RRI) says that non-traditional areas found in the Northern Province would be ideal locations for cultivating rubber trees eyed as a golden crop to bring in a high yield that could generate a large income through value added exports.
The Master Plan has been worked out for a 10 year period from 2016-2025 as a national agenda for the rubber industry’s development and prepared by the Plantation Ministry together with the Industries and Commerce Ministry and the Sri Lanka Society of Rubber Industry. The plan looks at opening up rubber plantations of 22, 000 hectares (ha) extent in non-traditional areas like Monaragala (5000 ha) Ampara (10, 000 ha), Vavuniya (3000 ha), Mullativu (3000 ha), Hambantota (500 ha) and Puttalam (500 ha).
In three years the state plans to increase planting in 11,000 ha and the full extent to be completed by 2025 with maturity to be gained by 2032. The main objective is to increase national rubber production by 12 per cent through the expansion of rubber cultivation into agronomically feasible new regions where land is accessible to be developed as smallholdings. It was found that Moneragala was quite successful since planting commenced in the early 1990s and when the war was over cultivation moved into the Ampara district in 2003 which has now been harvested, RRI Additional Director Dr. Lakshman Rodrigo told the Business Times.
He however noted that those involved in chena cultivation in the non-traditional areas were averse to planting rubber as it takes longer time to yield. In the Sinhala dominated areas of Vavuniya in 2010 the RRI was able to convince people to plant rubber trees but in Kilinochchi and Mullativu the people would not accept planting these crops as it takes a longer time and was a deterrent to cultivating crops that bring in quick incomes, he explained. However, since these plantations have been neglected owning to lack of awareness the Rubber Development Department (RDD) that is mandated to expand cultivation, has taken steps to train Tamil speaking individuals in these areas who would be able to act as Rubber Development Officers to promote the cultivation of the crop.
Although lands were allocated to the people in Kilinochchi and Mullativu it had not proved to be a success as they were neglected, Dr. Rodrigo said. Due to rapid urbanization in the traditional rubber growing areas the RRI and the RDD have been looking at other areas to expand the rubber production. In this respect selecting the non-traditional areas in the North which have proper irrigations methods and solar pumps in addition to the availability of ground water is believed to be a good choice. However, authorities would be faced with the task of convincing the recently settled Northerners in former conflict affected areas to grow rubber, cultivation of which was not been seen by these people.