Sri Lanka earns $ 69 m on export of fruits and vegetables in 2008:

Call to develop horticulture sector

Charumini de Silva

Sri Lanka has a promising, but virtually an untapped potential as an exporter of high value horticulture products to nearby markets in the Maldives and Persian Gulf. Due to its tropical location and two monsoons, many types of tropical fruits and vegetables can be grown throughout the year.

Sri Lanka can also benefit due to its proximity and regular shipping connections to these markets. The fresh produce could be shipped faster from Sri Lanka than from more distant countries.

Freshness and the low cost of maritime transport are strong reasons for best practice horticulture enterprises to be located in Sri Lanka rather than in more distant countries.

Sri Lanka exported fruits and vegetables worth $ 69 million in 2008 - both fresh and processed.

Although it was less than 0.7 percent of the total exports for the year, it was 167 percent more than the value of fruits and vegetables exported in 2006. Most of the produce is exported to the Maldives and Persian Gulf countries. The long term demand in these countries is large, despite the global economic downturn and property collapse in Dubai.

H. Samaratunge, Paul Sommers and John Varley submitted the assessment report on horticulture in the Eastern, Uva and North Central Provinces at the ‘Sri Lanka Connecting Regional Economies’ forum conducted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The report’s central strategic recommendation to develop the horticulture sector is to export more into the markets where Sri Lanka enjoys a location advantage. The fruits in demand in the Persian Gulf and the Maldives are traditional tropical fruits such as bananas, pineapples, papaya and melons.

Successfully growing and exporting more tropical fruits will require extensive private and public investment in expanding production and improving the supply chain links into rural areas.

These investments will create direct employment opportunities on a large commercial-scale and also help raise the incomes of small farmers in the surrounding area, the report said.

According to the report, the increased planting of high yielding varieties of onions, and chilies should be accompanied by plans to collect, sort and provide storage facilities that can retain part of the harvest through the off-season.

To make effective use of the storage facilities, small farmers will need to be part of a village level collection which should be tied into a zonal collection arrangement to reach larger buyers and processing facilities.