'Indiscreet felling, major threat to coconut plantations'

Hathoon Sheriffdeen

Major threat: A major threat to the coconut plantations is the felling of coconut trees without considering any limits, by estate owners. That is, there are no legal restrictions on owners in relation to coconut tree felling on coconut land.

Whereas in Sri Lanka we have enough restrictions on felling the other considerable big trees said Chief Executive Officer, Silvermill Holdings Ltd, Suresh Silva at the launch of Fortune branded coconut oil by Pyramid Wilmar (Pvt) Ltd. at Tans Asia hotel on March 15.

Five hundred million nuts are wasted in total by Sri Lankas coconut consumption. Due to our home coconut usage culture, 40 per cent of the total number of coconuts used by Sri Lankan housewives is thrown in the bin after absorbing the coconut milk from the scraped coconut.

If the scraped coconut is ground and the paste is used instead of the coconut milk, it's a much more effective way to get the maximum out of a very small quantity of our total production, he said.

'Coconut consumption is very high in Sri Lanka compared to the world. Approximately 75 percent of the coconuts produced is used for local coconut consumption. Twenty five percent of the coconut land of the total coconut land available in the country is used to crop coconut due to various difficulties, said Silva.

"We are planning to market 20 metric tonnes of Fortune branded coconut oil in three months. Which will be a market share of 15 per cent.

Pyramid oil mill produces Fortune soya oil, corn oil, sunflower oil and palm oil apart from coconut oil for the Sri Lankan market. Due to various fake coconut oil being available in the market, we are in this market to give branded coconut oil to Sri Lankan consumers" Brand and Channel Development Manager, Pyramid Wilmar (Pvt) Ltd Kamil Hussain said.

The average coconut production last year was 2200 nuts per acre. Whereas well looked after estates cropped 5000 to 8000 nuts per acre.

'Good cultural practices, natural fertilizing, composting and good after care will give a better result than the synthetic fertilizing systems. In our country mainly we talk about mounting prices of fertilizers in various circumstances.

The coconut planters should be educated on these practices by the respective government bodies and the connected parties. This will enable Sri Lanka to earn a remarkable foreign exchange income in future, The CEO said.

The Sri Lankan coconut is accepted only if it is grown in an organic way by the global market, he said.