Category: Agriculture

Oct 31, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s raw coconuts prices hit another high this week pushing average farm gate prices up 26. 5 percent over the past two months, as import protection remained tight amid higher global prices for substitutes. At Thursday’s auctions in Colombo average prices rose 894 rupees to 33,910 rupees for a […]

Oct 29, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Kelani Valley Plantations made a net profit of 36 million rupees in the September 2010 quarter owing to strong rubber and stable tea prices, a stock exchange filing said. The company is recovering from losses a year ago with the loss in the September quarter of 2009 being […]

Oct 27, 2010 (LBO) – Use of mobile phones has helped Sri Lankan farmers get better prices for their produce and the technology can help reduce poverty, according to a new United Nations study, officials said. “There is an informational dimension to poverty – poor people need lots of information for their livelihoods such as […]

Oct 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea production fell slightly in September 2010 compared with a year ago although output for the nine months were much higher than in the same period for 2009, the Tea Board said. Tea production in September fell five percent to 26. 4 million kilos from the previous year, […]

Oct 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has received 20 bids from vendors in nine countries for a satellite-based vessel monitoring system tender which will be awarded before the end of the year, fisheries minister Rajitha Senaratne said. “We found choosing the vendor more difficult than we first thought. We have sought seeking expert help […]

Oct 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s plantations industry is looking to extend a productivity linked pay scheme when talks on renewing a wage deal with labour unions begin early next year, an official said. Lalith Obeysekere, chairman of the Planters’ Association, which represents regional plantations corporations, said the industry is satisfied with gains from […]

Oct 13, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Cargills, the island’s largest retail chain said it had added farmers from the former war-torn north to its country wide network that keeps its outlets supplied with fruits and vegetables. “We have added 1,600 farmers from the North,” Cargills chief Ranjith Page told the annual annual sessions of […]

Oct 09, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka, a top exporter of tea, has made the world’s largest cup of the brew in a ten foot high thousand gallon cup breaking a Guinness record previously held by the United States. An official from Guinness in London was in Colombo to monitor the event, the organizers said. […]

Oct 08, 2010 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government is to import chicken and eggs during the traditional festive seasons in November-December and the traditional new year in April, according to a Cabinet decision. The import programme is to be reviewed monthly. Sri Lanka imposed price controls on chicken and also pushed up import duties […]

Sept 27, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is offering 200 acres of land for commercial agriculture on the bank of a major river bordering the island north-eastern region, meeting long-standing requests from businesses for land, a statement said. The offer comes in response to repeated requests from agri-business firms who have been clamouring for land […]

Sept 26, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should make better use of existing stocks of low yielding milch cows in larger privately owned herds rather than importing high-yielding stocks at great cost from abroad, a top official said. There have been attempts in Sri Lanka to import higher yielding cows to improve herd stock and […]

Sept 20, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to impose a new levy on tea exports to raise funds for marketing and advertising to increase its market share in the highly competitive beverage market, officials said. Upali Dissanayake, additional secretary of the Ministry of Plantation Industries, said the law to enable the collection of the […]