Sadaharitha team tours Assam to study best practices in Agarwood
View(s):A delegation from Sadaharitha Plantations Ltd including company’s Chairman, Sathis Nawarathne, toured Assam, in the south of eastern Himalayas recently, to get a hands-on experience of growing and marketing Agarwood, considered to be the world’s most sustainable investment in commercial forestry.
Assam is known to be India’s Agarwood capital and sharing best practices in pricing, training labour and exploring marketing opportunities with the Indian experts would help the team from Sadaharitha to benefit from the knowledge they gain, a company media release noted. Assam is the gateway to northeastern India and shares borders with Bhutan and Bangladesh.
Speaking of the delegation’s tour to Assam, Mr. Nawarathne said, “We benefited immensely from the tour and will be able to provide sound investment opportunities to our clients by exchanging best practices with the Agarwood growers in Assam and in turn we were able to share our own expertise for their benefit”.
Among the members of the Sri Lankan delegation were Dr. Upul Subasinghe, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, the University of Sri Jayawardenepura who is also the Forestry Consultant of Sadaharitha Plantations. His paper titled “Gyrinops Walla: Recently discovered Agarwood producing tree in Sri Lanka” was published recently in the journal of All Sanchi (Agar) Growers Association of India and the publication focused on the issue that frequent smuggling and poaching made the species vulnerable to extinction.
The release said Agarwood is a billion dollar industry, in which the ever increasing price is attributed to the constantly growing demand in larger markets such as Middle-East, China, USA and Europe in various forms such as graded chips, powder, oil and as finished products, like perfumes, incense and medicine and even as jewellery because of the belief that it brings wealth and good luck.
This wonder tree is regarded as a gift of nature since the tree does not contain any perfumery oil glands. The agar oil is formed when infected with microbes when the tree is bored and infested by the trunk borer, the release added.