In Northern Province:

Over 465 acres land newly cultivated with coconut

Shirley WIJESINGHE

Around 465 acres of land in Northern Province have been newly cultivated with coconut and 48,583 coconut saplings were distributed among 9,000 families of the area, Plantation Industries Ministry sources revealed.

The Coconut Cultivation Board had spent over Rs. 5.54 million for this project which had been launched under the Urthuru Vasanthaya accelerated development drive.

Accordingly, about 200,000 coconut saplings are grown at nurseries in Achchuveli and Kilinochchi to cultivate 2,000 acres of land. Earlier the total extent coconut land in the Jaffna , Kilinochchi and Mulaitve districts was 83,000 acres.

But this amount reduced considerably to 37,400 during the war period.

Sources pointed out that the Northern Province has a potential of producing more coconuts to meet the consumer requirement of the area.

If coconut plantations in the Northern Province could be properly managed another 220 million of coconuts could be added to the National Coconut production of the country.