Launch of the RIVER Rubber FASEP at the Sri Lankan Ministry of Plantation [fr]
On Wednesday, February 22, the Sri Lankan Minister of Plantations Dr. Ramesh Pathirana and the French Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Jean-François Pactet officially launched the RIVER project (’Rubber Improvement of Value Chain & Embedded Smallholders Resilience’), co-financed by the French Ministry of Economy and Finance via a EUR 565 000 FASEP Green Innovation grant and the Michelin Group, and implemented by the French social purpose company KSAPA with the support of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Plantation. The FASEP grant is a mechanism that supports internationalization of French companies, by financing pilot projects that will serve as demonstrators for green and innovative technologies.
The RIVER project aims to train 6 000 small rubber farmers in the Moneragala and Ampara districts in the South-East of the country via an innovative online training platform called SUTTI, developed by KSAPA, accessible off-line on all types of cell phones, and in-person training sessions provided by Michelin Lanka teams.
Over a period of 3 years (2023-2025), planters will be trained in rubber cultivation and extraction, crop diversification, species selection, fertilization and chemical use, entrepreneurship and human resource management, among other things. The project will go through a diagnostic phase (6 months), a pilot development phase (6 months) before moving into the operational phase (2 years). RIVER will thus support the income, resilience and productivity of beneficiary farmers and promote socially responsible and environmentally friendly practices in line with the FASEP Green Innovation criteria and Michelin’s CSR approach.
While Sri Lanka is facing a drop in rubber production, the Minister of Plantation raised the importance of the RIVER project to develop this crop in non-traditional areas while ensuring its profitability for the beneficiary farmers. French Ambassador Jean-François Pactet underlined the increasing cooperation between France and Sri Lanka in the agricultural sector, which also includes a loan from the Treasury in the dairy sector and a grant from AFD for the development of a GI “Ceylon Tea”. In a context of crisis for the country, which has hit local agriculture hard, he affirmed France’s willingness to support Sri Lanka’s strategic assets and potential to accompany its economic recovery.
Following the kick-off meeting, KSAPA teams presented their initial report to the Ministry of Plantation, Rubber Research Institute and Rubber Development Department teams resulting from their first field mission in the country.
