TROPICOIR LANKA AND ILOS LEED + PROJECT JOIN HANDS TO EMPOWER THE NEEDY IN THE NOTHERN PROVINCE
Coco chips are widely used by farmers and gardeners. The ILO’s LEED+ project works with the private sector and local communities in Sri Lanka to develop coco chips as a mutually beneficial business.
SRI LANKA (ILO News) – The sound of a coconut cracking open breaks the silence in Lavanya Nadaraja’s kitchen at her home in Mullaitivu, in the north of Sri Lanka.
Small, white flakes fall rapidly into a bowl as 39-year old Ms Nadaraja moves the broken half of a coconut along the blade of the scraper, preparing lunch. Not far away, her husband, 49-year-old Kidnan Nadaraja is feeding coconut husks through a cutting machine, breaking the husks down to small brown particles – coco chips.
With an estimated three billion coconuts produced in Sri Lanka annually, they are unsurprisingly a staple of local cuisine as well as a major export commodity. Coco chips are used by gardeners and in agriculture around the world and Mr Nadaraja recently became a supplier to TropiCoir Pvt Ltd., one of Sri Lanka’s leading exporters of coco substrates.
