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By Sanath Weerasuriya

Bulgaria is negotiating a pepper purchase contract through the Sri Lanka’s Agriculture Export Department – a direct result of the last International Pepper Community sessions held in Kandy last month.

The department, which promotes but is not an exporter, has diverted the buyers to cluster production villages promoted by the state.

Department Deputy Director Dr. Janananda Weerasinghe said they are also seeking avenues to diversify the export of pepper and not be too dependent on India the main buyer of Sri Lankan pepper because of recent trends where India is trying to buy less pepper from Sri Lanka.

Since the cluster programme has been initiated by the Department, they have found that it has worked well and also research has developed and training has been afforded to the farmer.

Dr Weerasinghe said the biggest problem that Sri Lanka faces in the pepper market is that global pepper production has seen a dramatic growth from 1997 to 2003, the increase being over 90 percent during the six year period. Vietnam was the main contributor to this increase, with output jumping from 25,000 tonnes to 85,000 tonnes.

As a result of rising supply, Sri Lanka has to find markets to export the production even if India purchases continue as usual.