Sri Lankan supermarket chain helps farmers get higher yields through partnership with Indian company
Sri Lanka’s largest supermarket chain, Cargills (Ceylon), has reportedly stated that the company has helped Sri Lankan farmers get higher yields with lower input requirements in a pilot project carried out with the assistance of Jain Irrigation Systems of India.
“We worked with Jain Irrigation Systems of India to introduce proven practices from India that have been successful in reducing manpower and agri-inputs usage,” Cargills Group Chairman Louis Page has been quoted as saying in the company’s annual report for last year.
Jain has been identified as the second largest micro-irrigation company in the world, making a range of precision-irrigation products and also providing services from soil survey, engineering design to agronomic support.
According to Page, for the first phase of the programme, 80 small-scale farmers were selected from three collection centres in different ecological zones.
“In partnership with Jain Irrigation, we provided overseas training and field visits to some of these farmers as seeing is believing.
“A team comprising experts from Jain Irrigation and Cargills thereafter worked with the farmers to install drip and sprinkler irrigation equipment and supported them with training and monitoring during the cultivation period.”
Accordingly, the investment cost to install the irrigation systems was shared between the Cargills Sarubima fund and the farmer.
“The first phase of the agriculture modernization project concluded successfully with farmers experiencing higher yields with lower input requirements in their first cultivation,” Page has stated.
“We are now planning for the second phase of the project.”
According to the Cargills Chairman, the project seeks to address challenges to growth of agriculture in Sri Lanka, including high costs of production, low yields, volatile climatic conditions, dwindling interest of youth in agriculture, overuse of agro-chemicals, and limited export potential of local produce.
It has created 80 model farms in Thambuttegama, Thanamanvila, and Norochcholai and introduced improved, “climate-smart” agricultural practices for 20 different crop varieties, the annual report has informed its shareholders.
A local media report recently stated that the Cargills Group operates an extensive food and agriculture supply chain in the country, buying vegetables and fruits from a network of over 10,000 farmers, through 10 collection centers and sent to its chain of 380 Cargills Food City supermarkets.
OSL take:
The partnership between Cargills Ceylon and an Indian company to develop the agriculture sector in Sri Lanka is indicative of the business potential in the country’s agriculture industry. Foreign companies engaged in the agriculture sector could explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s agriculture industry. Also, foreign businesses could look at forming partnerships with local companies to engage in Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/09072019/Z_2 |