Coconut Home Garden Project in the Northern Province

“Growing Coconut; Growing National Harmony”

by Dr. Lalith Perera,

Additional Director, Coconut Research Institute.

Very early one beautiful morning in the latter part of 2017, I was traveling up to the Northern Province and had a stopover for breakfast at the Coconut Cultivation Board’s guest house at its Palai coconut estate. I was with a few others who were also going to Jaffna to attend a Steering Committee meeting of a proposed development project on the revitalization of coconut in the Northern Province after the war. I was then the Head of the Genetics & Plant Breeding Division of the Coconut Research Institute (CRI). Mr. Janaka Dharmakeerthi, then Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Plantation Industries was also with us. Though there were several programs in the project, Mr Dharmakeerthi, asked me if hybrid coconut seedlings could be given to home gardens of poor families there.

During the time there was only one coconut seed garden owned by the CRI at Ambakelle, It produced a very limited number of hybrid seeds leaving a short supply of seedlings for coconut growers in the main coconut growing areas. However, during that time there was the CRIs Pallama Seed Garden, which was being established with several mother palms in the bearing stage. I replied saying that if funding and support can be given, I can convert Pallama into a hand pollination unit and produce hybrid seeds for the Northern program.

Mr. Dharmakeerthi immediately offered me five million rupee to proceed with the project. With this initial funding and later funding received by us as part of a treasury funded project in the CRI, and with the fully pledged support from the then Chairman CRI, Mr. Jayantha Jayewardene, and then Director CRI, Dr. Priyanthie Fernando, we developed the Pallama Seed Garden into a hand pollination unit and began a massive hand pollination program to achieve 100,000 coconut hybrid seedlings within the project period. Up to date we have completed the distribution of two seedlings each to 15,000 families in the Jaffna peninsula. Mr. Roshan Jayathilake, Seed & Seedling Certification Officer CRI as the chief project implementing officer rendered a highly dedicated service to the project

Seedling transport and distribution activities were assisted by the Coconut Cultivation Board and Government Agents (GAs) in the respective GA divisions in the Jaffna peninsula, who welcomed the program and helped immensely in coordinating the seedling distribution. Another 20,000 seedlings are to be distributed in the Jaffna peninsula in the next few weeks to complete supplying 35,000 families there. A program is now underway to distribute 30,000 seedlings to 15,000 families in the Kandy, Kegalle and Ratnapura districts as a separate project using seedlings produced from the same project, for which approval is granted by present CRI Chairman and Director, Mr. Jayantha Wickramasinghe and Dr. Sanatanie Ranasinghe respectively. Dr. Athula Nainayake and Dr. Kasun Meegahakumbura are coordinating the seedling distribution in the Kandy, Kegalle and Ratanapura districts.

I recently informed Mr. Janaka Dharmakeerthi of the progress of the project and I quote his reply below. “Thank you, Dr., I highly appreciate your efforts. It’s not only growing coconut in the Northern Province, it is growing national harmony also”.

With the strengthening of the home garden program, it is expected to increase the national coconut production, harness the full potential of hybrid coconuts and make poor families self-sufficient in coconut and reduce the burden of demand for coconut from small home gardens leaving surplus nuts to the very important coconut processing sector.