Tropicoir Lanka promotes grow more coconut concept countrywide
Tropicoir Lanka Group General Manager Leslie de Silva handing over a coconut plant to Col. Dinesh Nanayakkara Centre Commandant of the Military Intelligence Corps.
It is time for Sri Lanka’s coconut industry to grow more coconut trees at home gardens in rural areas having been overshadowed by ageing trees threatening to curtail annual production in coming years, several local, value added coconut exporters told the Business Times.
Coconut production in the country is sluggish at present as a result of poor management of coconut lands and most of the plantations are overage and low yielding, they claimed.
70 per cent of coconut production is consumed domestically with around 800 million nuts available for the export market.
Sri Lanka earns US$ 0.6 billion from the exports of desiccated coconut and coconut by products but it has the potential of becoming a $1 billion industry via value added exports, exporters emphasised.
Coconut husk has become a rich resource for a variety of products as well as soil-less gardening.
The coconut fibre is a raw material for products such as ropes, coir mats, coir mesh, bio-filter and even yarn.
Coconut exporters said that the country has a high potential in the production of the cash crop if cultivators are prepared to grow more coconut trees.
Sri Lanka per capita consumption is 110 coconuts per person and the country needs 240 million coconuts annually for domestic consumption.
“It is therefore useful for householders to grow their own coconuts for home consumption and to sell the excess to earn an additional income,” one exporter pointed out.
With the aim of contributing their share to meet the growing demand for value added coconut products, Tropicoir Lanka Group along with its subsidiaries Tropicoir Lanka (Pvt) Ltd and Euro substrates (Pvt) Ltd is implementing a 100,000 coconut tree planting programme countrywide.
Tropicoir Lanka has taken this initiative of distributing coconut seedlings among small growers to grow at least three coconut trees in a home garden depending on availability of land, Managing Director of the company Dinesh Fernando told the Business Times.
The company has started this programme initially by distributing seedlings among its employees; he said adding that it is a part of a sustainable solution to the current coconut cultivation crisis.
The focus is on inculcating the coconut growing habit among children through this programme grooming them as responsible global citizens for tomorrow’s world who nature and protect trees and the environment, he added.
Tropicoir Lanka has been able to plant over 12,000 coconut seedlings in home gardens of workers of its factories and small lands of villages living in surrounding villages, Mr. Fernando revealed.
As a major step towards this initiative, 1000 seedlings were handed over to the Centre Commandant Military Intelligence Corps Col. Dinesh Nanayakkara recently at the Military Intelligence Regimental headquarters, Sri Lanka Army in support of their efforts to grow coconuts on army lands.
The company not only provides seedlings, but also monitors the progress while offering technical assistance for the success of this nationally significant initiative, he observed.