Permanent Representative to United Nations (UN) Agencies in Rome, Ambassador Cindy McCain and US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung participated in a meeting with beneficiaries and officers of the Smallholder Tea & Rubber Revitalization (STaRR) Project during the official visit to the several development projects of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) implemented in North Western and Central Provinces of Sri Lanka.
The STaRR is an IFAD-funded key project being implemented by the Ministry of Plantation Industries with the technical support of the Tea Smallholder Development Authority (TSHDA), Rubber Development Department (RDD), Tea Research Institute (TRI), Rubber Research Institute (RRI), Thurusaviya Fund, and Regional Development Dept. of Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
The Ambassadors discussed how the project assisted smallholders in facing the challenges raised by the current crisis and shortage of agricultural inputs including fertilizers and cost escalation for inputs.
STaRR project beneficiaries representing the tea smallholder development societies went on to explain the way of strengthening them with the startup support being extended by the STaRR project for diversifying their income.
The project initiated alternative income generation activities including home gardening, dairy farming, production of organic fertilizers, growing and selling cash crops.
Increasing the productivity of tea lands and promoting new rubber cultivation in nontraditional areas of the country for improving the livelihood of Chena cultivated farmers and tea smallholders are the long-felt development initiatives of the project.
Supporting the replanting of old unproductive tea lands with high-yielding cultivations and promoting rubber new cultivation to improve the rubber supply chain as means to improve the livelihood of people, are in practice at present under project interventions.
Furthermore, the project interventions have been helping the Tea and Rubber Smallholders to adopt new technologies and practices that have enabled them to increase the productivity of their tea and rubber lands.
The STaRR Project aims to introduce significantly faster and more cost-effective tea replanting techniques in 4,500 hectares and 3,000 hectares of rubber new cultivation of smallholders’ lands targeting 32,000 households through the mobilization of resources and coordinating of stakeholders to improve the value chain management process to improve their food security and increase their income through revitalizing tea and rubber development.
The project has completed tea replanting in 2,500 ha in 6 districts with the support of TSHDA and Rubber new planting in 3,000 ha in two districts under the technical guidance of RDD. Out of these, latex tapping from new rubber plantations has commenced in 44 ha by 64 Rubber smallholders under project assistance.
by Daily News Sri Lanka
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