Life in New Zealand...

This is a new chapter in our lives; my son and I moved to New Zealand second time in December 2013. We now live in Wellington. Gardening is never gone away from my life. It is in my blood. My green fingers need to tend plants to be active, my heart needs to whisper to the flowers to be happy. This is how it has to be for me to be complete.

We bought a house in 2015 in Porirua with a garden was landscaped and all I needed to do was to plant what I love to grow. My husband made raised beds to grow our vegetables last autumn. Now we have an established garden in the backyard.

Problems Faced by Rubber Small Holders in Sri Lanka - My Experience (2)

The incidents happened for last two weeks added another dimension to add more to write on the problems faced by rubber small holders in Sri Lanka. This is a very serious situation, not only the rubber small holders like me but also big plantation companies face in this country on daily basis. This problem is not only confine to the rubber estates, the tea estates are also in the same situation. That is "stealing the plantation products from the estates". During the last weeks, a few trust worthy villagers informed me that the rubber has been stolen from the land for last two years. That was not a surprising news, I had some information; even my brother and my ex have seen our tapper's family carrying dried crape rubber sheets. But I was helpless to take an action. I had to keep on depending on him.

This is the same situation every where in Sri Lanka. Unless the owner is there in the Estate 24/7, the labourers steal whatever they can take from the estates. If it is a rubber plantation, they will steal latex, dried rubber on tapping routes of the trees and collection containers, and dried rubber sheets. This happens during the broad day light as well as at nights or even during the rainy days that rubber trees are not tapped. The tappers of the garden as well as neighbouring villagers steal rubber products. In tea estates, they pluck the tea leaves at nights, leaving nothing for owners. 

When it comes to the bigger plantations, the stealing happens in a much organized way. If you visit the rubber stores/buyers in the nearby towns, you can witness the nature and magnitude of the crime. The villagers as well as labourers tap rubber trees bordering to the villages. It is an organized crime. The criminals often have the blessings of the local politicians to terrorize Estate owners and managers. 

The shameless, cunning tappers of our land were so shrude, the played every trick in the book to prevent me selling rubber trees for timber. They wanted to continue the old tactic as long as they could. Growing grass and mining rock won't help them to get easy cash for a long period. They influenced the silly villagers to come to the road to block trucks carrying rubber trees. I had to get the help of the police to resolve the matter. I feel sick of handling the issues of the land. Although untold, many small holders face the same situation in Sri Lanka, suffering endlessly in the clutches of the unruly villagers and power hungry and money greedy politicians. I have my faith only on my business partner who is a cleaver and cool headed man with lots of experience of managing people.

Problems faced by the rubber smallholders in Sri Lanka: My experience

I wanted to write here a long time ago, but kept on postponing as there was so much to write. But my embarrassment to accept some of the hard facts also prevented me in writing. When I saw this Estate of mine, I fell in love with the land. I wanted it to be remained as a rubber plantation and had plans to improve it further. But the existing rubber plantation failed to give me a reasonable return for my investment. After romantically and emotionally embracing this land with all my heart, I hate to admit that the investment is a failure and caused massive hardships in my life. 

The rubber plantation in the land did not give a reasonable production to be economically viable for tapping. The production cost of crape rubber was very high, leaving only one third of the income as a profit. This did not cover even the interest of the loan that I took from the bank to buy the land. I believed the rubber variety that has been planted in the Estate was a low yielding variety. The years of negligence at the early stage of plantations did not boost the healthy growth of the trees, and the trees became barren with very low yield. The Estate is on a rocky mountain with a thin layer of soil on the surface. This has further reduced the chances of root system of the trees to grow deeper to grow healthily. The constant rains in the area further reduced the monthly income. The average tapping days were reduced to 15 days in a month for last two years due to rain. 

Although the government of Sri Lanka gives rubber plants to replant and fertilizer, it needs at least another 15,000 to 25,000 $ to uproot the old rubber trees in my 12 acre land, and to prepare the land for replanting. It needs to wait nearly seven years until rubber plantation grows to a harvesting stage. With the constant rains in the area and high labour cost, I don't see replanting is a viable option for this land. It is very difficult for an owner to maintain any plantation living far away from the land. The owner should be there in the land all the time micro managing every aspect without relying on workers. 

With all the difficulties of managing the land, I tried my level best to sell the land over a period of one year. Lots of people visited the land, but the access road was the hindrance to sell it. The road is narrow and in a very poor condition. It is hardly motorable. The Estate has a huge rock over an extent of more than 8 acres. A friend of mine who tried very hard to sell the land finally suggested to form a company to mine the rock and use the remaining land for horticulture for landscaping. He was the only person whom I could trust to start such a venture.

For last two months, we had several meetings to agree with the terms and conditions. We prepared the necessary documents including MOU and lease agreement and made arrangements to register our company; Deranie Global Enterprises (pvt) Ltd. We sent papers for the company registration this week. We had discussions with the local authority people to get the road improved at our cost. Luckily we have a steady supply source from the nearby Crusher Plant which is 4 km away from our land to supply 50 cubes on daily basis.  We are trying to get some landscaping contracts too for us to provide plants.

My business partner and I are determined  to make it happen. I know the first three months are the hardest time of our business. There will be lots of ups and downs on our way, including social problems from the villagers. But we are getting there and we will make it happen!

Forgotten Land

I went to see the Estate after a long time. The weed is overgrown, the Estate is in a messy condition. This is not what I wanted to see, when I bought it in last June. I felt sad that I have neglected it so much. The life is taking a U turn in a difficult and narrow road. With the incidents taken place within past 8 months, the life  has been twisted and it takes a long time to heal. What will be my next move? Who knows?

When I look at this blog, the statistics surprised me. How popular it is among people who wants to read about rubber plantations!. I have neglected them sadly. My last post was in August, I had so many plans to run the Estate for a long time. Such plans are shattered and battered. Withstanding against all the turmoils, the Estate still stands majestically on the top of Walpolakanda mountain.

Pest Attacks

We never thought that the innocent looking multicoloured locust is such a menace in the garden. All evidence proved that inhabitance of Yellow Spotted Locust at abundance threatens the banana and pepper plantations.

Yellow Spotted Locust

Yellow Spotted Locust, has been in existence in Sri Lanka since 1898, but was not hitherto reported as a threat. But it is reportedly multiplying at an alarming rate within last few years. Surviving solely on greens, it attacks all plants without discrimination. We have seen thousands of this unknown locust on grass in late June and first few weeks of July in our garden, but didn't notice any harm until mid July.

Locust Eating a Banana Leaf

The workers noticed the swarms of locusts eating banana leaves and leaving skeletons of leaves within days.

Skeletons of Banana Leaves

The research on this pest reveals that changing weather conditions and land use patterns have brought about a gradual increase over the years. "These unusual weather conditions and climatic changes have provided a good base for these insects to breed".

Immediately I contacted Agricultural Department of Sri Lanka and talked to agricultural experts to get some information on how to control it. "The only option is to kill the insects. One has to kill them before they reach the breeding stage by either burning their nests or by using insecticides. But insecticide specified for this purpose could be hazardous to the people in the area leaving fire as the only option."

When I went to the garden, the locusts are few in number. With the help of my tappers, we started collecting them into a bucket of water. Surprisingly, they survived in the water for a whole day.

Locusts in the Water

Killing a living being is the last thing a Buddhist wants to do! My tappers refused to harm them. Ultimately it was left to me, and in fear of losing our banana plantation I had to destroy them all. We also searched the garden to kill the rest.

The last thing in our mind is the application of pesticides, which we are scared to do. We already noticed that some insectivores birds feeding on locusts. We are hoping to apply integrated approach for pest control more ecologically and environmentally sustainable way by raising few free ranging chickens.

Intercropping Tea with Rubber

The tappers have counted all the rubber trees in the 10 acres of our garden. There are 960 trees in our Estate. The average tree density of rubber is about 160 trees. Whereas ours is 96, that is nearly 60% of the tree density of an average rubber plantation.

 Our Rubber Plantation in a Misty Day

The low tree density has both advantages and disadvantages. The direct impact is the low yeild per acre. We cannot expect more than 30 kilos of daily avarge yeild from the pentire plantation. That is less than 20 kilos of our initial expectation.

The great advantage is the possibility of intercropping. Intercropping is promoted recenly in monocrops like rubber and tea to increase the productivity of the land in order to diversify income sources and increase the potential income. Intercropping will also help to generate income particularly during rainny periods.

The biggest disadvantage for multicropping in rubber estates is lack of sunlight within the plantation for other crops to grow. The thick foliage cover of the crown prevents sunlight filtering to the grond. This prevents possibility of growing other crops in the ground. Although the rubber smallholders have tried growing tea, pineapples and bananas in rubber plantations of Sri Lanka, multicropping is often failed due to lack of sunlight in the rubber estates. Ours is a blessing in disguise.

Poor State of the Tea Plantation

The main intercrop of our Estate is tea. We have a nearly an one acre of tea plantation, which is nearly five years old. It has also been severely neglected without weeding, proning and fertilizing. We are blessed with our tappers, they have got all the knowledge and experience to maintain the tea plantation and to manage/develop it further.

Overgrown Tea Bush

Our tappers work in the tea plantation every afternoon, weeding, proning and fertilizing the trees. Weeding is a tedious task. Weeding needs to be done manually, pulling out all the grass and weed under the rows of trees. They cut overgrown branches with a knife specially made for proning tea plants. One may think that weeding increases soil erosion. But the tea bushes work as a perfect cover to prevent direct rains hitting the bare soil. Besides the weeded vegeration is placed between rows to decay.

Rows of Tea Bushes: Main Intercrop of Our Estate

They prone the tea bush to a height of 1.5 ft from the ground. Once the weeding and proning is completed, they will fertilize the trees to increase the leaf production. The tea plantations are fertilized during the drizzles, July is the ideal time for fertilizing. We are in the process of upgrading the condition of our little tea plantation!

Desperate Times...

Our smoke house was burgled three weeks ago! I belive it is more of a sabotage activity.

Few days before the incident, two drunken villagers who worked in our garden had told the Builder that I had not paid them well. The truth is that I had paid more than what they deserve, but the cunning villagers wanted more and more with no or less work. There were nearly 60 rubber sheets in the smoke house, only 19 sheets were stolen. They have broken the door and taken the sheets away.

If it was a thief, he would have taken the whole lot away. That is why I think that it is a mear act of sabotage, just to teach me a lesson. I was very disappointed. By that time, I didn't earn a single cent from the Estate. It was raining heavily during the months of March and April. Most villagers didn't have any work duirng that time. They had their food because of the money they got by working for me.

We need to look after what we have. We stock piled our rubber in Builder's house after this incident. I hate to depend on others, but I am helpless. But when we tap the whole garden, the area over the hearth of their kitchen will not be adequate. How I wish that my husband is with me, just to take care of the garden and its yeild! The workers who are constructing the house, wonder around unproductively. They don't want to complet the house soon, because it will dry out their income source.  I have none to supervise the work during the weekdays.

We don't have a place to live, I am so desparate to complete our house. The house we rented has a leaky roof, bat, rat and ant infested smelly bedroom, where we sleep on the bare floor. The roof over the kitchen and bathroom is very much decayed, don't know what time it falls on our heads. Last week we didn't have water too. I hate to spend nights there. In this circumstance, I think we need to give up the idea of building a spacious house, because of the labour problem and expenses we have to bear constantly. Against all these odds, I like our Estate very much. It sooths my dying sole...