How open economy and bureaucracy ruined RSS rubber production

By Dhamsiri Dasanayake

Ex-Advisory Officer

Rubber Research Board

RSS (Ribbed Smoked Sheets) rubbers are the prime raw material particularly processed by smallholders from latex extracted from rubber trees by tapping under certain methodological recommendations specified by the Rubber Research Institute (RRI). People who are engaged in tapping trees on occupational basis are called tappers who are also technicians though it is not a white collar job. Their skillfulness in this extraction process is indicated by thickness of bark shavings. The tapper removes bark shavings at regular interval leaving one mille meter layer of the bark to outer side of the cambium layer (Diya Pattaya). Conversion of this latex into RSS is also a skilled technical job through a processing activity which needs chemicals, rubber rollers and a smoke house, etc. In general, in Sri Lanka 70% of rubber lands are smallholders and 30% estate owners. Smallholders’ RSS sales were linked to a grading system such as RSS No1 to RSS No. 5. Out of these grades RSS No1 gets the highest price while RSS No5 the lowest. The subsidies for rubber cultivation were given by the government, paid through the administrators of the Rubber Development Department (RDD) for motivating the rubber smallholders. This article intends to discuss RSS manufacturing and marketing during the past decades. RSS rubbers are one of the industrial inputs in the raw material industry of rubber and a foreign exchange earner.

In 1970, the Rubber Research Institute (RRI) set up a Small Holdings Department, which trained small holders on various processes involved in planting and RSS processing through Rubber Instructors of the RRI. The RRI provided plans of smoke houses with some financial assistance to construct Demonstration Smoke Houses for processing RSS rubbers. This was the foremost extension activity of the Rubber Instructors among their other services.

For selling the processed RSS rubbers of smallholders, the government had set in a scheme with China under mutual agreement to export our RSS rubbers for their industrial development and to import their rice for our nations’ consumption in accordance with the “rubber- rice” pact. As a continuation link of this chain, the government instituted the Commodity Purchase Dept (CPD) to purchase smallholders’ RSS rubbers. For this purpose, the government opened purchasing outlets all over the rubber growing areas and appointed well-trained managers to purchase smallholder RSS rubbers. If smallholders manufactured quality RSS (No01) they could have received a higher price and through which farmers were motivated to manufacture quality RSS.

When Sirimavo Bandaranaike came into power, Dr Colvin R. de Silva as the Minister of Plantation Industries, proposed to build large smoke houses called Group Processing Centres (GPCs) to process RSS in a group approach in high density areas of rubber. That led to the creation of smallholders’ cooperative societies to empower them to produce better quality RSS rubber and to get their other requirements related to rubber fulfilled. Well-organised managerial and financial systems were introduced to these societies with advancing systems to needy subsistence level smallholders by the Economic Research Division of the Advisory Services Department (ASD) while making frequent monitoring.

Under a project called Smallholder Rubber Rehabilitation Project (SRRP) implemented in 1988, a Processing Division was established under Advisory Services Department (ASD) by appointing Divisional Processing Advisers, Regional Processing Advisers and Head Processing Division at National level to coach on RSS manufacturers. As a result of this productive approach, nearly 100 Group Processing Centres (GPC), were established in several districts of the country. It led to the escalation of the processing of RSS in a sound manner to upgrade the rubber economy.

President J. R. Jayewardene came into power in 1977 allowed others to participate in rubber purchasing, which the Commodity Purchase Department (CPD) had been performing. Eventually, it led to the closure of the CPD and all the staff were given the choice between retirement or transfer to other branches of the Department. Having closed down the CPD, the then government introduced a Licensed Dealer system as an alternative to rubber dealing system of the government. The RCD issued licences to businessmen who wished to take part in this process as rubber dealers. As a result of this new arrangement, the grading system existed as RSS1, 2, 3, 4, 5, were eliminated while introducing the bulk purchasing system. This exposed smallholders to exploitation by rubber crafty rubber dealers.

The ASD having been attached to RCD in 1994, the Processing Division was eliminated from the RDD. This led to abolition of the the RSS processing system and gradually smallholders took into cultivation of other crops such as tea, coconut, vegetables, etc. and by eliminating smallholders and tappers from rubber cultivation. This affected the rubber industry to a great extent. In 2002, the Minister of Plantation Industries merged all the Group Processing Centers (GPCs) and created an institution called Thurusaviya.

About 41,523 MT of RSS rubbers were produced and 43,727 MT of RSS rubbers imported in 2017, as indicated in Table 1. According to these figures, in 2017, Sri Lanka imported 2,204 MT of RSS more. This indicates that there was a demand for rubber which could be produced here by proper constructive planning through the extension staff. Table 2 shows the declining trend in replanting and new planting which need to be carried out through the guidance of the extension staff by properly planned constructive mechanism.

All in all, unmistakably, the decisions taken by the authorities since 1977 and the abolition of the Processing Division by Rubber Development Department (RDD) after the attachment of ASD to RCD in 1994 have adversely impacted on the processing of RSS rubbers. This processing was carried out mostly in Group Processing Centres (GPCs) from the past. Under these circumstances for boosting up the RSS rubber processing in the future, Thurusaviya (GPCs) should be attached to the present Advisory Services Department (present ASD) of the RRI for increasing the quantity of RSS rubber production. RSS Rubbers have had a strong link with 70% of the rubber smallholders from the past. It is very special that The RRI was the cradle of the Group Processing Centres. Hence the authorities should implement the said amalgamation to developing the RSS processing to boost rubber imports and, thereby, earn more foreign exchange.