The coconut harvest of the Kurunegala District has come down by 25 percent this year when it is compared with the last year’s harvest (2016).
Kapila Hettiarachchi, Regional Manager of the Coconut Cultivation Board (CCB), Kurunegala revealed these facts at the recent Kurunegala District Agricultural Progress Reviewing Committee meeting held at Kurunegala District Secretariat. He said that this decline in the coconut harvest was due to the severe drought that existed recently and the fragmentation of fertile coconut lands that give good harvests in the Kurunegala District by Land Sale companies for auctioning as blocks for building houses.
Those who purchase coconut lands for selling have to get permission from the Coconut Development Board and the NWP-PC and hence, such dealings do not come under the purview of the CCB. Fragmentation of Coconut lands that give good harvests has affected very badly towards the drastic downfall of the present coconut production in the Kurunegala District, he said.
However, the CCB has planned to distribute about 250,000 coconut seedlings early next year (2018) among house holders and the school community to popularize coconut cultivation among the residents of the Kurunegala District. In addition, free manure too would be supplied to the small-scale coconut growers next year along with these free coconut seedlings next year, he added.