With the SRI-PROM project in Sri Lanka we are working with the local rural communities in the Ampara, Monaragala, Badulla and Kandy Districts to ensure the realization of eco-friendly farming industries; they will guarantee an high and long-lasting profitability to the small farmers.
During the first year of the project, we selected 44 rice producers and 325 spices producers, who received traditional rice seeds and local slices of spices to start a new sustainable industry. They also got biological manure, irrigation pipes and connection tubes to the well useful for farming.
Our project sustain the biological plantation of traditional nutritious products, with low production costs, that ensure a higher profitability, despite the yield is lower than the one from the imported products grown with the help of synthesis products (more atqui).
ICEI and his partners organized some Farmers Field Schools , where the beneficiaries could learn the principles of sustainable agriculture and the tools and techniques to produce spices and rice in a biological way. The participation was good and other producers took part in the lectures: they will be included in the second year of the project!
The beneficiaries were satisfied of the harvest of the first cultivation and Ecowave, our local partner for the project, acquired most of the final product, ensuring the sale of local channel like the Good Market, a network of social enterprises that sell biological products in the local market and in Colombo.
Moreover, within the SRI-PROM project, the Chambers of Commerce of the Districts helped the work with some direct funding to the micro-small enterprises that are very active in the low environmental impact production. Before the end of the first year, two female enterpreneurs were awarded for their work! They will receive some trainings about business management and marketing and they will receive a financial help for the transformation and packing of their farming products. Other producers will be selected and awarded during the next years!
Thanks to Ecowave, the products of the beneficiaries will be evaluated to obtain the biological certificate and they will be sold in the international market.
If you would like more information about the SRI PROM project, please visit our page here.
Contact us atcomunicazione@icei.it
