Maize farming in Kantale sugar factory land struggles thro’ red tape
ABoard of Investment (BOI) agriculture-based company is grappling with local bureaucratic red tape to initiate commercial maize contract farming at Kantale, Trincomalee, informed sources said.
This large barren land will be handed over to farmers dividing it to five acre blocks each for maize cultivation under the facilitation of private companies and investors till the re-opening of the sugar factory there, State Minister of Minor Crops Plantation Development Janaka Wakkumbura disclosed.
He told a public meeting that the investor company will have to enter into contract farming agreements with sugar cane farmers in the Trincomalee district to implement the maize cultivation project in the 22,000 acre land.
One of the strategies for diversifying agriculture and increasing food production on sugar cane lands is to inter-crop the sugar cane with food crops such as maize which could also be used to produce ethanol or bio-fuel.
According to the contract farming agreement, sugar cane cultivation should be resumed after the reopening and maize could be cultivated as an inter-crop in accordance with the needs of the investor company.
KST Evergreen (Pvt) Ltd, an agri-based BOI company set up in 1984, has stepped in to implement the maize cultivation project and it has cleared 2000 acres initially spending Rs.450 million official documents revealed.
But the distribution of 500 acre blocks of land each among farmers after the signing of the contract farming agreement is still pending although necessary action has been taken by the Kantale Divisional Secretary on the directions of the Land Commissioner.
Cabinet approval is essential to implement this massive project but no action has been taken towards this end by the Secretaries of the Ministries of Land and Plantation Industries.
The company has not been given even an official permit by the two secretaries to go ahead with the project pending cabinet approval causing undue delay in launching the project, informed sources said.
Meanwhile the reopening of the Kantale Sugar Factory is still pending due to a dispute between the SLI Developers (Pvt) Ltd, MG Sugar Lanka (Pvt) Ltd and the previous regime which had entered into a shareholder agreement on August 11, 2016.
There was a dispute with the previous Government regarding the ownership of assets owing to official bungling by the then secretaries of subject ministries and alleged bribe taking in transferring machinery, scrap metal and other assets of the Kantale Sugar Factory to MG Sugars.
This dispute has caused the delay in reopening the sugar factory up to now, official sources said.