Financial Times

Malwatte Valley diversifies into fish, cut flowers
Malwatte Valley Plantations, known for its distinct Uva quality teas that fetch record prices during the season, is diversifying into fish farming and growing of cut flowers with the aim of becoming an agribusiness company.

Its managing director Willem Bogtstra said the company had begun a joint venture with Japanese investors to grow hybrid flowers on an estate in Uva for which there was good demand in Japan.

“Profits from the cut flower business exceed that from tea on the estate,” he said. The company used its good connections with agribusiness firms in Holland and got a licence to grow a flower called ‘Hypericum’ with cuttings imported from patented breeders in Holland.

The flowers have a good market in Japan and the company has struck a deal with a large cut flower importer there. The Japanese partners put in equity in the joint venture as well as placed confirmed orders.

Malwatte Valley has to maintain very high standards as Japanese buyers are very quality conscious, Bogtstra said. The company has had to install special lamps on the estate to provide the right intensity of light required to give the flowers the exact colour demanded by buyers as the amount of sunlight can vary. The business came Sri Lanka’s way after European agribusiness farms in Zimbabwe, which grew the flowers, were forced to close for political reasons.
In the other project, the company is farming a special variety of ‘Tilapia’ fish in concrete ponds on an estate in Badulla, which is close to a river that also is a source of power.

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