Big demand in international market:

Orchids a foreign exchange earner

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

H.S. Wanigatunga - Pic by Sumanachandra Ariyawansa

Many people have inborn talents. Some of them get an opportunity to secure employment in the fields where they have the talent. Others are obliged to accept jobs, which are not in keeping with their talents. However, at some stage in life they try to make use of their inborn talents.

Chairman, Horticultural Developers (Put) Ltd H.S. Wanigatunga, a multi-talented person falls into the second category. Wanigatunga became an award-winning entrepreneur after his retirement from the textile industry in 1975.

He was interviewed by Daily News Business.

Wanigatunga was born to a teacher family at Uduwa in Horana.

He completed his education at Ananda College in Colombo and entered the Ceylon University and obtained a degree in Mathematics and Physics. Pembroke Academy was a well-known institute in years gone by and the Managing Director, Hope Abeywardena knowing my capabilities invited me to teach at the college when they were short of teachers. In the meantime, I got a government scholarship to follow a degree in the textile industry in Bombay.

I passed with a first class. On my return to Sri Lanka I got a job at the Veyangoda Textile Mill and became the Senior Assistant Spinning Manager and Factory Manager. A few years later I joined the Wellawatte Textile and Weaving Mills and I made significant improvements, as the first Sri Lankan Factory Manager, he said.

Own company

Wanigatunga launched his own company having purchased half an acre land in Kirulapona to grow orchids. “The value of a perch those days was only Rs. 1,000. I had a dream to own an orchid garden from my early childhood. I was impressed when I visited the orchid garden at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, one day, and I bought some plants and planted them in my home garden. This was my hobby, he said. Wanigatunga was a regular visitor at flower exhibitions in Colombo and later he obtained the membership of the Lanka Orchid Society and participated in the exhibitions.

A former MP Dhanapala Weerasekara was the only entrepreneur who imported plants from Singapore, Bangkok and Hawai at the time. Wanigatunga bought more plants from him and developed his orchid garden with 6,000 plants. “I became a member of “Lakmalsala” founded by Dhanapala Weerasekara”.

In 1972 he won a gold medal at the first exhibition organized by the Lanka Orchid Society where former Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike was the chief guest. I was surprised to see my photograph in the front page of the Ceylon Daily News the following day with the Prime Minister and I was keen to grow and learn more about orchids,” he said.

Significant day

An employee tends to the flower garden

Asked about a significant day in his life with orchids, he said that one day an unknown person came to his garden and bought 4,500 plants.” I had just finished building my house and I recovered the total cost of the house through that business.

It was a great achievement. In 1978 I participated in the World Orchid Congress in Bangkok and visited a 20 acre orchid garden which was the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life, he said.

He developed a number of hybrids and named them after certain people whom he admired, he said.

Profitable venture

Wanigatunga became a shareholder of Lakmalsala where he sold orchid flowers and at one time he resolved a financial problem and made it a profitable venture.

Asked about the challenges, he faced, he said that he never had challenges because he was the only orchid grower at that time.

However, today there is a huge demand in the international market for orchids but the flowers are insufficient. His future plan is to help orchid growers in the country to meet this challenge and earn foreign exchange for the country.

As the Advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Horticulture, Wanigatunga has been called upon to implement the Rural Horticulture Development Project, the only project of the President’s office.