Starting off as a BOI project, the Infomatics Agrotek farm (fondly referred to as the Kajuwatta) in Dehiattakandia is perhaps one of the largest farms in Sri Lanka. Over 500 acres of cashew, 200 acres of coconuts, bananas, papaw, and lemon are grown. One of their specialties is the drought resistant crop of Weta Endaru – used to make bio-diesel. They also make and distribute buffalo curd on a small scale.
Using South Asia’s largest pump house to pump water (above), the farm employs a drip irrigation system (below) to administer just the right amount of fertilizer and water for the crops to acquire an optimal harvest.
The battle between wild elephants and man is prevalent and the farm uses high voltage electric fences (below) to keep the elephants at bay.
The quality of the plants are quite good, as they are grown by tissue culture in laboratories and brought up in a horticulture nursery under a controlled environment. The beauty is that everything is mass produced and the economy of scale brings down the marginal cost of production to an extent that can never be achieved by small farmers.
There were some labour problems when I visited the place sometime back, but then again, going on strikes can be considered a national sport of sorts in our country... With the slow but steady decrease in the power distance and hierarchical culture, this will eventually diminish altogether, but the problem is 'when?'...
The bio-diversity and nature of Kajuwatta is unparallel. I had the pleasure of going on a “night safari” across the farm and was pleasantly treated with the spectacle of several wild animals including a gigantic night owl, a green leopard, and a herd of deer.
5 comments:
that was very informative...
didn't know anything about this project...
thanks a lot for sharing it..:-)
but i ws wondering, what ws the cost of this? and how was it funded?
Honestly don't know how the equity is shared, but it's definitely BOI. They've started quite recently and the break even point is yet to be reached, mostly because of the long term crops they've planted like Thekka.
Most of our farmers in a desperate situation although they play a vital role in our economy; projects like this could help them to keep up what they are best at.
In Aussie due to the long drought farmers having a terrible time while gov have given them a cash options to leave the land with dignity. But some farmers would not take that option but stay and fight hope for the end of the drought. I hope liberals will ratify the kyoto .
Whether they play a vital role in our economy is a highly debated topic.
Sri Lanka is much more of a service-oriented country and a lot of people are looking forward towards a BPO market. It's lucrative, doesn't incur hard labour and the exchange rates are awesome..Maybe the service sector is better off than agriculture in a climate such as SL. I'm surprised countries like Australia have struggle dealing with droughts. I always thought that they have sufficient networks of Irrigation.
There's an interesting discussion going on at
http://www.lirneasia.net/2007/09/bpo-bop/
(regarding the BPO thing)
You don't wanna hear about suicide rate of Aussie farmers due to these uncontrollable factors. Gov is acting proactively by offering cash options.
Furthermore, these farmers struggle to compete their hard grown crop due to cheap imports. Not only fruit and Veggies..but Meat and fish too.
I think SL is still struggling to gain even a small pie from the Asian BPO market due to the fact that India still remains the most favored outsourcing destination. As per the recent survey (done by CyberMedia Global Services)on Emerging Outsourcing Destinations in 2007.
btw, thanks for sharing the link.
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