Ways to revive the crisis-hit RRI
There have been some voices in the recent past, expressing negative sentiments about the Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka (RRISL), which isn’t sweet music to ears of the scientists who have dedicated their life to RRISL and of those who are still serving with much dedication.
File picture of a rubber nursery
However, to some extent there are grounds for some of these negative impressions. There have been even suggestions from some quarters to close down the RRISL without knowing the yeomen service it has rendered to and still prevailing upon the entire rubber industry in Sri Lanka by this prestigious institute being the first institute in the world established for natural rubber research. Only very few know that if not for the RRISL the Sri Lankan rubber industry would not have come thus far to become close to a US$ 1 billion industry as at today for it has been supporting numerous upcoming product industries at their initial stages and also to increase the productivity of rubber lands.
Wretched treatment of RRISL
The woes of RRISL began in the 1980’s when the then Minister wanted to remove the Director and the Chairman of Rubber Research Board (RRB) when they showed resistance to political influence in the recruitment process and to shifting of technology laboratories from Ratmalana to Agalawatte. In this subtle disharmonious battle, the then Director who had an illustrious career at RRISL, decided to give up his reigns although the then chairman who happened to be a respected senior planter took up the challenge to halt the shifting of technology laboratories which were set up at Ratmalana in the early 1970’s to serve the emerging rubber products industries around Colombo metropolitan area and its suburbs. Despite objections, a building complex at Agalawatte with political directives was set up in the 1980’s utilizing RRISL funds, reserved for research purposes and received as cess collected by customs, thus starving the RRI pushing it to financial bankruptcy. To add insult to injury, the Treasury got hold of the cess fund under its custody by amending the Rubber Research Ordinance, thus RRISL was compelled to depend on the Treasury thereafter. In the meantime the minister’s plans of shifting never came to fruition and the buildings set up at Agalawatte were abandoned till recently when it was taken over by the National Institute of Plantation Management (NIPM) although it seems to be still underutilized. The ultimate result of the incongruity between the Minister and the RRB Chairman was the amendment of the Rubber Research Act in 1987 changing the structure of the board entrusting powers to the Minister in making appointment to the post of Chairman who was elected by board members under the provisions of the previous Act. According to the new composition of the RRB, the Director of RRISL had not been a member of the RRB unlike in the previous Board, who happened to be the vice-chairman under the provisions in the previous Act. However, this was corrected by amending the Act again in 2003 to include the Director as a mere board member and at the same time, with additional inclusion of two trade unionists as well, nominated by the Minister, an unprecedented move frowned upon by many.
Consequent to the amendments made to the Act after 1987, most of the Chairmen appointed by the ministers with the Director Board were catspaws who did mostly what the politicians and bureaucrats wanted to do according to their political and personal cravings and not to cater to the appetite of the industry although there were some respected chairmen who stood in good stead appointed by some perceptive Ministers who didn’t exploit the facilities and did not disrupt the RRI activities by their interference. Two of such outstanding chairmen were R. I. Obesekara, a respected lawyer and Y. W. Gunawardhane, a senior SLAS administrator who didn’t however have a scientific or plantation background and hence could contribute very little to ameliorate the standards of RRISL. The dereliction of duties by the senior scientific managers is partly responsible for the mess created under the clout of interference in the (mis)management of the RRISL by political humbugs especially during the latter part of the last regime resulting in a number of frustrated scientists leaving the RRISL in despair and also since they could not bear and witness the ruination of the RRISL anymore.
Fate of Advisory wing of RRISL
One disastrous move in 1994 brought about by the mandarins in the Ministry of Plantation Industries (MPI) with ulterior motives, was the amalgamation of the then Advisory Services Department (ASD) of the RRISL with the then Rubber Control Department, functionally and structurally two different entities, to form the present Rubber Development Department (RDD). The then RRB could not foresee the deleterious consequences of such a move and did not resist it despite some foresighted officers of ASD being against the move. The chaos due to this bureaucratic bungling is visible today; the RDD merely serving for the disbursement of the rubber subsidy to farmers. Now the rubber farmers are left high and dry without knowing as to who should be approached to get advice for every aspect of farming and rubber processing activities, which was a very efficient and satisfactory service rendered by an able, dedicated team of advisory officers of the former ASD (nurtured by RRISL) who got their knowledge updated regularly mingling with the scientists of the RRISL. The pathetic inefficient extension service of the RDD is apparent especially in Moneragala and its proximities, considered to be non-traditional areas where new plantings have come up but the farmers do not have previous experience unlike those who are in traditional areas. The farmers in these areas are ignorant on good agronomic practices, latex exploitation techniques and processing where extension services have not reached them properly. This writer, after witnessing the lack of awareness of rubber farmers in Moneragala, about five years ago, got involved in organizing some awareness programmes which were conducted together with RRISL officers among several batches of rubber farmers in Moneragala as a CSR project by a private company. Those awareness programmes were not adequate at all to quench the thirst of farmers for knowledge on farming, exploitation and processing of latex. The farmers said that any such programme had never been conducted until then and it is doubtful if a single such programme has ever been conducted for the benefit of rubber farmers since then. It is imperative that an efficient extension service is essential to make awareness among the farmers by a dedicated knowledgeable team of extension officers whose knowledge should be regularly updated and they are constantly trained by RRISL as was done in the glorified past. Without such a pragmatic approach, it would not be possible to increase productivity, and in turn, the total rubber production in the country required to cater to the products industry and also to attract new investments to expand the rubber products industry to earn enhanced revenue and foreign exchange by exporting a higher volume of rubber products.
Past glory and brain drain
The writer can vividly remember when Dr. Sarath Amunugama, the then Minister of Science and Technology, addressing the audience at an Awards Night of Plastics and Rubber Institute as its Chief Guest, said that the RRISL should be brought back to its past glory in order to support the ever expanding rubber products industry.
This can be done by keeping the RRISL away from unnecessary political and bureaucratic interloping to run it independently with the backing of the industry. However, perks enjoyed by its former scientists before 1970s shall be restored in order to attract intelligent young graduates and to retain them. The obvious choice of young graduates before 1970s had been the RRISL when the perks had been very attractive at RRISL during those days. Under the auspices of Navin Dissanayake, Minister of Plantation industries, at the inauguration of Finite Element Analysis and Simulation (FEAS) centre recently, Dr. Susantha Siriwardena, Deputy Director –Research (Tech) of RRISL, in his address, revealed the reason for the brain drain and difficulty in retaining even the young graduates.
The young graduates seek temporary shelter at the RRISL as a transit point until they find some other attractive employment. This is why none of the young recruits has shown any interest to pursue their higher studies leading to PhDs despite having allocated Rs. 15 million in the current budget which was a luxury for their senior colleagues a few moons ago. In hindsight, if they oblige, they have to serve an obligatory period at the RRISL, apparently with hesitation, in return for the RRISL funds they use for their higher studies. It has been difficult even to retain the technical staff too due to the same reason, i.e. comparatively poor remuneration package resulting in a vast service gap, between the senior technical staff and the younger staff, which may further widen. As a result, the experienced staff both research and technical may disappear in a few years to come and the efficiency of the services will be affected while there may be some effect on quality of research as well.
The brain drain at RRISL has become a serious issue that only two dedicated senior scientists remain at the Rubber Technology laboratories at Ratmalana at the moment and the next most experienced scientist has served only 13 years without proper guidance of senior scientists since there has been a huge vacuum for quite some time.
The situation is no different in agronomy departments in Agalawatte. So, whilst a proper plan shall be drawn for retaining especially the young scientists, there should be another plan to guide them. One of the suggestions would be to get the services of senior scientists who are retired or serving in the private sector/universities in the country and are willing to guide them until the young scientists are properly guided and trained to stand on their own feet.
Unless the issue of retaining the much valuable human resources at RRISL is addressed, it will not be possible to invigorate the RRISL to its past glory which would otherwise be a distant dream to achieve at least a fraction of highly improbable ambitious targets set in the Rubber Master Plan. If there is a vibrant RRISL, it is possible to train and guide the potential entrepreneurs, providing technical services for product development, testing and certification of products, process and system development in order to cut down costs to be competitive in the global market and producing technical experts for the industry (there are RRISL scientists who later joined the private sector to develop them to the present status), etc. In the meantime, RRISL should be further equipped with necessary modern testing equipment and other scientific instruments if there is any deficiency.
Rubber production and productivity
To improve the productivity of rubber farms, the extension wing of the RRISL shall be strengthened whilst the RDD shall be reduced in size merely to release subsidy payments on the technical recommendations of RRISL since maintaining the RDD at current status is a waste of public funds. A properly updated reliable data base, which is currently lacking at RDD, can be maintained by the biometry department of RRISL in order to make appropriate decisions with regard to improving productivity of rubber lands, increasing rubber production in the country and also for the benefit of all stakeholders who need reliable data for planning purposes. A system shall be devised to monitor all the rubber plantations including the rubber plantations owned by Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) whilst the performance of all these plantations shall be reported to the MPI and necessary action taken to improve their performance in order to increase the rubber production through productivity enhancement. In order to manage the rubber farms profitably under the current low price fetched for rubber, the only alternate solution is to enhance productivity of rubber farms as practiced by other rubber producing countries and some RPCs in Sri Lanka. Since it has been proven disastrous with waste of public funds by employing a non-scientific staff at RDD to manage the extension work, the process of monitoring the rubber plantations and making awareness on correct farming and exploitation techniques for enhanced productivity, can be assigned to the extension wing of the RRISL after strengthening it with sufficient qualified scientific staff and providing required logistics. The desired promising results, after implementation of such an effective programme, could be realised within five years. Better late than never.
(The writer is currently Consultant/Advisor – Rubber in Liberia. A former Research Officer at RRISL, he can be reached at sarath_kuma@yahoo.com)