Category: Agriculture

July 09, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has expanded rubber cultivation into the non-traditional dryer regions of the island™s Eastern and Northern regions with the crop showing high yields in several pilot projects, a senior official said. “We have introduced rubber into the Eastern and Northern region,” Gamini Seneviratne, director, Rubber Research Institute of Sri […]

July 04, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run Milco (Pvt) Ltd, a dairy products firm, is modernizing it factories with a 5.5 billion rupee credit structured by UK’s HSBC banking group, a finance ministry report showed. Milco markets and sells ‘Highland’ branded milk powder, liquid milk, ice cream and cheese. HSBC has previously helped channel […]

July 01, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has approved a 2.5 million US dollar project to farm Barramundi or Asian Sea Bass off the coast of Trincomalee in North Eastern Sri Lanka, the state investment promotion agency said. Oceanpick, a Sri Lankan firm will partner with a Scottish firm to farm the fish in cages, […]

June 21, 2013 (LBO) – Elpitiya Plantations Plc, a unit of Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence group said it had boosted tea yields and diversified into cinnamon oil palm and oil milling, allowing it to boost profits.In the year to March 2013, 11 percent of its 2.8 billion rupees in revenues came from palm oil as […]

June 19, 2013 (LBO) – Farmers in Sri Lanka’s former war zones in the North and East are cultivating more land but need modern technology to improve yields, officials who are organizing a trade show to link them to buyers said.Under tariff protection, where prices are higher than the rest of the world, there is […]

June 14, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is expecting to have a vessel monitoring system operating within five months which will provide up to date weather information to fishermen and reduce loss of life, fisheries minister Rajitha Senaratne said.But warnings will be disseminated through the ‘Sayura’ a fishermen’s radio channel and other media, Senaratne said. […]

June 11, 2013 (AFP) – The death toll in Sri Lanka from strong monsoon winds and heavy rains rose to 54, as the government announced on Tuesday new safety requirements for small fishing boats.The minister said small boats which usually go out to sea at night and return at dawn were not regulated and did […]

June 10, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has come second after Bangladesh for concentrations of cadmium in a listing of 12 countries where rice was tested for toxic metals, a media report said.Cadmium had been linked to a mysterious kidney disease of which the original are still not conclusively known (chronic kidney disease of unknown […]

June 10, 2013 (LBO) – Sunshine Holdings Plc, which has the second largest share in the branded tea market, will expand into the bottom-of-the-pyramid segment, with its new third brand, officials said.The firm now had a third of a 10 million kilo branded tea market.Sri Lanka’s total domestic tea consumption is estimated at around 26 […]

June 07, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will conduct a comprehensive marine fisheries stock assessment in 2013 for the first time in nearly four decades with Thai assistance, an official said. Fisheries minister Rajitha Seneratne said last month that fishing vessels from Japan to be run by Koyoshi Kimura, a sushi restaurant chain owner known […]

June 7, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Sunshine Holdings said it had sold a stake in its plantations unit to Pyramid Wilmar Plantations (Pvt) Ltd, for 910.3 million rupees. The sale cut its stake in Estate Management Services (Pvt) Ltd to 33.15 percent from 51 percent by the sale of 5.59 million shares, the firm […]

June 06, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Tea Smallholder Factories Ltd, a unit of John Keells Holdings, which produces tea from green leaf bought from independent growers said it had expanded suppliers during the past year. The company runs a network of eight factories. Last year it had increased suppliers by 2,714 to 11,532 direct […]