THANAMALWILA - Cargills (Ceylon) PLC through its far-reaching vegetable and fruit collection centres is uplifting the education of farmers’ children, in particular at Gangayaya villege in Thanamalwila, one of the remotest areas in the country.
This long term structured scholarship scheme is operated under an annual community development initiative of Cargills together with the farmer community and World Vision Lanka.
It was commenced in April 2008 at Gangayaya where 50 cents from every kilo of farmer produce purchased by Cargills for channelled to the project. So far Cargills has purchased Rs 160 million worth of produce from the Gangayaya Collection Centre.
The second Scholarship awarding ceremony was held this week at Gangayaya and this year the Community Development Fund was also partnered by ‘One Trust Sri Lanka’.
Fifty scholarships for higher education for the children of the village and in addition six laptops sponsored by Deutsche Bank at a cost of around Rs 1.3 millon were awarded to students from the area pursuing university education. Some 22 homes in the village were also granted pipe-borne water. A desktop Personal Computer and Internet connection were provided to the Gangayaya Community Centre library.
Sidath Kodikara, COO, Cargills at the presentation ceremony said that the project aims to provide resources for the needy children for learning and advancement, to meet basic infrastructure needs with the engagement of the communities they work with to charter their own course of development. He said that their focus on rural development involves direct investment to engage in agricultural sector.
Dr Jagdish Katyal, Director Consultant, Agribusiness, Cargills said that today Cargills is a global role model in corporate-driven rural development studied by World Bank, Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation, London School of Business, etc. Haridas Fernando, Deputy General Manager, Agribusiness, Cargills told Business Times that the Scholarship programme is part of ‘Cargills Vision’ to develop the community. He said their next project would come up in two months in Boralanda, in Welimada.
The company now purchases 75 tons of farmer produce per day and in addition to their 156 supermarkets spread in 25 districts, another 70 supermarkets would be created by the middle of next year, thus doubled the purchase of farmer produce. Alongside they also envisage to engage in Community Development.
Karunaratne Basnayake, President, Uva Govi Sanvidhanaya with a membership of around 10,000 farmers travelled from Welimada to gain a first-hand knowledge of Gangayaya’s success story. He told the Business Times that the Boralanda Cargills Collecting centre would help around 4,000 farmers in Welimada area and is built at a cost of Rs 4.5 million.
He said that Cargills by collecting farmer produce directly has broken the backbone of the earlier middleman mudalali system of vegetable purchases and it has a 40% penetration into this monopoly. Cargills while ensuring a fair price for the farmers has also contributed to vegetable price stability to a great extent, said Mr Basnayake.
He said that earlier the farmers were at the mercy of the mudalali monopoly and sometimes had to go to Colombo with lorry loads of vegetable but returned home unable to sell without even covering the transport cost. He said that farmers are now realizing the huge benefits that accrue by direct sales to Cargills and there is a large number of farmers clamouring to sell to Cargills.
Mr Fernando from Cargills said the direct purchases have now created the status quo of the farmer, specially the young farmers, indicating that there are educated young farmers in Norochcholai, Puttalam who net in profits as high as Rs 150,000 per month. Therefore, the results of educating the children of the farmer community would definitely come back to their home ground, he added. |
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