A warm sunny day interrupted by bruised and sullen storm clouds that drenched and refreshed the vegetation and the spirit. One of the crew, presumably suffering from jet lag, required a rather long sleep that ended around lunchtime (local time). Meanwhile, four of us enjoyed a fruitful breakfast of bananas, pineapple, papaya followed by eggs […]

Team Sri Lanka left from Newcastle Airport (almost) on time on Friday morning. After a couple of comfortable emirates flights, punctuated by a brief stop in Dubai with an authentic McArabia kebab, we arrived intact at Colombo. Our swine flu ‘infected’ country of departure meant an additional grilling by department of health officials. However, we […]

Today we were up bright and early in the Sri Lankan sunshine to prepare for our first debrief with Mr Runage. We made recommendations including some quick wins and were very pleased to hear Mr Runage state that he felt we knew almost as much about cinnamon as he had learned in his 30 years. […]

Today was a mixture of thought, transcription and trying to ignore the swimming pool. With debrief meetings scheduled with Mr Runage and local producers tomorrow, our task was to distil the detailed notes down to a coherent plan that could be split into quick wins and longer term goals. By mid afternoon the swimming pool […]

No visits or meetings planned for today so an opportunity to catch up on writing notes for our findings so far.A visit to a turtle sanctuary revealed some local conservation work that is having significant success in increasing turtle numbers, 5 of the world’s 7 species of turtle are bred in the area. This was […]

Our morning began with a visit to Ruhuna University to meet Professor Weerisinghe at the department of Agriculture.It began with a visit to the main campus of the university, swiftly followed by an about-turn when we found out that we were expected in the Profs office half-an-hours drive away! After this slight mishap we found […]

Today we met an expatriate local plantation owner who grows tea, rubber, cinnamon and coconuts over 23 acres. We gained an understanding of the challenges involved in managing a plantation and employing a mix of employees and migrant workers. Concentrating on the cinnamon element of this, we explored the issues involved in the plantation owner […]

The true start of our exploratory work began today as we met key members of Mr Runage’s cinnamon business. Mr Runage is the owner and Managing Director of Rathna Producers Cinnamon Exporters (Pvt) Ltd.The company employs approximately one hundred local people, from Head Office operations through to Cinnamon farmers, peelers and packagers The full day […]