Ceylex Engineering invests in agriculture to beat food security
Ceylex Engineering through its subsidiaries, Kingsbru Teas (Pvt) Ltd and Ceylex Engineering Plantations, has invested in precision agriculture to combat food security, add value to their existing business, and as a national service to the country.
“With food security being a challenge, we thought of getting into agriculture. Also, tea for Sri Lanka is the answer. So, we thought of giving it an additional boost,” Ravi Dahanayake, Director, Kingsbru Teas (Pvt), Ltd and Ceylex Engineering Plantations told the Business Times in an interview recently.
The company has procured a tea processing plant which is one of the largest in the southern province, he said. “We produce 20,000 kg of tea a leaf month, or 100,000 kg of black tea monthly.”
Explaining the concept behind an engineering company getting into plantations and agriculture, he said that engineering expertise can be ploughed into agriculture and manufacturing. “Engineering is part of infrastructure development. In processing and in field development engineering applies.”
The company also procured 90 acres of coconut estate with six acres of paddy in it recently. “It was in a neglected state. This is because with the prohibitive cost of production, the owners could not manage it. After buying this land, we started investing and reinvesting. We planted 12 acres of guava fruit. Reconstructed the reserve oil on the estate and constructed the storage tank to store 3 1/2 million litres of water from the reservoir,” Mr. Dahanayake explained.
He said the company engineers are digging underground water supply at the rate of 60 litres per palm, for each 5300 coconut trees on the estate with the help of Israel technology.
Mr. Dahanayake added that Ceylex Plantations is also contemplating in getting into white coconut oil manufacturing in their coconut estate. “We are having the initial discussions with scientists and related parties in this regard.” he said. Banana and pineapple will be planted in the coconut estate in addition to the 12 acres of guava. All this will be for local consumption.
The company is also aggressively cottoning onto backward integration. Noting that there is a big scope in adding value to coconut, Mr. Dahanayake said the company is looking at the cosmetic industry. “We are working out the modalities to either set up or acquire a cosmetic company.”
With these projects, employment generation is treated by the company as social responsibility. “Currently we are not making any profits, but are investing and reinvesting in our plantations,” he said.
“Coconut is a palm that one can use for many things such as eating, drinking, charcoal etc. We are trying to pay a reasonable price to the coconut outgrower and engaging fair trade in implementing all our projects.”