Presidential Election gets hit by coconuts

Sri Lanka's one million coconut grower families dependent on the industry have been urged to vote for a future President who will have a national agricultural policy and support them by curtailing palm oil imports.

“The import of unrestricted quantities of crude palm olein and crude palm oil to the country has closed down nearly 90 per cent of the coconut oil mills and drastically reduced the farm gate price of coconuts which is currently lower than the cost of production,” a statement issued as an advertisement in the daily newspapers on Tuesday by the Coconut Growers Association of Sri Lanka stated.

It also noted that national edible oil consumption has risen to 88 per cent palm olein and crude palm oil and coconut oil reduced to 12 per cent.

The statement also pointed out that due to the current low farm gate price, farmers are forced to curtail the much needed agricultural practices and that it is “uneconomical even to pluck the coconuts at the present farm gate price”. (SD)