August 09, Colombo (LNW): More than 500 coconut growers in Mullaitivu have received financial assistance and planting material under a government initiative aimed at expanding coconut cultivation across Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.
A total of 515 growers were provided with Rs. 22.7 million in subsidies, while around 3,000 coconut seedlings were distributed at an event held in Mulliyawala yesterday (08).
The assistance was delivered under the ‘Kapturu Sawiya’ programme, implemented by the Coconut Cultivation Board under the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure. The initiative is intended to support growers in improving productivity and bringing more land into productive cultivation.
Of the recipients, 443 growers were awarded subsidies to develop irrigation facilities on their coconut holdings. A further 72 growers received financial support through a separate scheme designed to rehabilitate and restore coconut lands.
The distribution of thousands of seedlings is also expected to help increase the area under coconut cultivation in the Northern Province, where authorities are seeking to make greater use of underutilised agricultural land.
The wider Northern Coconut Triangle programme encompasses Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya, stretching across a region linking Point Pedro, Silavathurai and Kokkilai. Introduced last year, the programme seeks to revive abandoned cultivation areas, raise household incomes among growers and build the province’s contribution to Sri Lanka’s coconut industry and export sector.
The initiative is aligned with the Government’s longer-term ambition of raising annual coconut production to 4.2 billion nuts and increasing coconut-related export earnings to US$1.5 billion by 2030.
Plantation and Community Infrastructure Minister Samantha Vidhyaratne, Deputy Minister of Cooperative Development Upali Samarasinghe, Northern Province Governor Nagalingam Vethanayahan, officials from the ministry and representatives of the Coconut Cultivation Board, Coconut Research Institute and Coconut Development Authority were among those present at the event.