HNB Saru Ge-Watte leads agricultural revival in the central province

Supporting efforts to reform and revitalize Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector at the grassroots during these challenging times, private sector bank HNB PLC launched ‘HNB Saru Ge Watte’, a campaign aimed at establishing new marketplaces for rural farmers in urban areas while promoting home gardening in urban areas across the Central Province.

Launched in collaboration with provincial and district agricultural offices, the campaign was kick-started at the Kandy City Centre with the presence of Provincial Director General of Agriculture, S A De Silva as the Chief Guest, HNB Deputy General Manager- Legal (Board Secretary) leading the initiative Thushari Ranaweera, HNB DGM/Chief Credit Officer, Nirosh Perera, CBSL Manager (Matale), Chathura Ratnayake together with HNB Regional Business Head (Central), Harsha Wickremasinghe, HNB Kandy Customer Center, Senior Manager, Indika Ekanayake, KCC Chairman Thusitha Wijayasena, Divisional Secretaries, Wathsala Marambage and R M S M Rathnayake.

“With our nation facing its worst economic and food security crisis in history, it is imperative that all Sri Lankans work together to ensure we are able to produce enough to help tide us over during these trying times. We are proud to launch the HNB Saru Ge-watte initiative to provide our customers, the public and Sri Lankan farmers with the knowledge and partnerships necessary to utilize all available land to cultivate food, and contribute even in a small way towards mitigating the worst impacts of the coming crisis,” HNB Deputy General Manager- Legal (Board Secretary) Thushari Ranaweera said.

Given that farmers in non-banking rural segments have difficulty connecting to buyers in urban areas, HNB announced that it would work with its existing customer network to help disintermediate the agriculture sector by creating direct relationships between rural farmers and consumers across the island, in order to provide both sides respectively with a decent livelihood from their harvest, and a reasonable price for their essential needs.