Asia Edition
The demand for organic food products is continuously increasing due to growing demand from markets in the EU, USA, Middle East, Japan and China. Sri Lanka maintains a reputation as a reliable producer and supplier of organic agricultural products, adhering to the internationally required organic standards such as EU Organic, USDA, JAS, etc.
This has meant that even during the pandemic, Sri Lanka has received a considerable amount of orders for organic food products such as tea, spices, coconut kernel products, jack fruit products, traditional rice, etc. As a result, increasing the supply base of organic food products to serve the foreign orders on time is necessary to bring more foreign currency to the country.
With the objective
of empowering small farmer groups to cater to the overseas markets, the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) implemented an assistance scheme to assist them to acquire organic certification from internationally accredited certification bodies.
The selected farmer groups were provided support to acquire organic certifications for a maximum of two organic standards (EU/USDA-NOP/JAS, etc.) and renew it for a period of two consecutive years. The project has facilitated five farmer groups including a total of 254 farmers to certify 130 ha of land as organic. The EDB was financially supported by the SME Development Programme of GIZ in Sri Lanka to make this scheme a success.
Source: dailymirror.lk
