The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake
Ravi Karunanayake welcomed the Minister’s reply but questioned whether the Government has a short-term plan to improve coconut productivity, noting that exporter demand is already about 4,000 million nuts against a 2030 target of 4,200 million. He argued that imports may be necessary to support exporters but said the priority should be closing Sri Lanka’s yield gap with India through measures such as hybrid seedlings and drip irrigation, which he said had shown success in areas such as Monaragala.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I thank the Hon. Minister for the detailed reply. Your target is 4,200 million nuts by 2030. However, our exporters currently need about 4,000 million nuts. While importing to support exporters is sensible, we must move with foresight. The best solution is productivity improvement. India harvests about 9,430 nuts per hectare versus Sri Lanka’s 7,100—a 25% shortfall. Do you have a short-term plan to close this gap? Hybrid seedlings and drip irrigation succeeded in areas like Monaragala—why are these not fully in your plan?
Provenance
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- Hansard, Thursday, 5 June 2025 ·No. 1750828922068945 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 June 2025. No. 1750828922068945. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/21298