SRI LANKA: Rubber smallholders to gain from IFAD loan

Sri Lanka has taken a UN loan to improve food security and increase incomes for 32,000 rural households dependent on tea and rubber plantations in central and southern regions of the country.

The USD65.4 million project, including a USD25.8 million loan from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), aims to help smallholders’ business more productive, profitable and resilient to market volatility.

It will help small farmers who grow tea or rubber to improve production and processing, and take advantage of market opportunities. It will also make rural finance more accessible to help farmers develop their rubber or tea business.

“It is important that smallholder farmers are the key decision-makers in all project activities,” said Hubert Boirard, IFAD’s country manager for Sri Lanka. “We are connecting farmers to the value chain, in both the tea and rubber sectors, so that they are stakeholders in producing, processing and marketing their products.”

The project area will cover the districts of Galle, Matara, Badulla, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya for tea cultivation, Moneragala and Ampara for rubber cultivation and Ratnapura for tea and rubber processing.

Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than USD262.8 million in 17 projects in Sri Lanka, with a total project cost of USD464.9 million, including co-financing, directly benefitting 557,000 rural households, the fund said in a statement.

Source: “Food Navigator Asia”, Montpellier, France; 12 Apr 2016
(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)