The Footprint of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Coconut Culture

Eliminating hunger and malnutrition and achieving wider global food security are among the most intractable problems humanity faces. The world as a whole facing high demand of food and most of the people unable to find good healthy foods as their wish. Agricultural development has a key role to play in generating the incomes needed to ensure food security. “Going green” means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles, which can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations.

Sri Lanka is a tropical Island situated in Indian Ocean. The Coconut (Cocos Nucifera) is regarded to be of ancient origin and cultivated by people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for its various of uses. Some say that it was of South American Origin while others hold the view that it is of an Asiatic Origin. However, the Italian Palm Specialist Beccaril (1916-1917) concluded that South-West Asia was the home of Cocos Nucifera.
Furthermore, earliest records show that reference to coconut in Ceylon was made by Fa Hian in the fifth century A.D. claimed to have found coconuts and coconut arrack available in Ceylon. Also, Arab traders Ibn Wahab and Abu Seyd are said to have had draughts of coconut arrack in Ceylon, in the fifth century A.D.
Hence it is evident that the coconut was established in Ceylon by the dispersal and dissemination from the original home of Cocos Nucifera either by the hand of man or by the nature. But the hand of man must have been the most active agent in the spreading of the coconut palm.
According to written evidence, Mahawansa King Agga Boddhi I is supposed to have caused a coconut plantation in A.D. 589. This, perhaps may have been the first coconut in Ceylon and in the whole World.
Afterall, in colonial time, Portuguese, Dutch and English had more attention on coconut tree with an eye on commercial gains. Thereafter coconuts tree became one of the main commercial cultivations in Sri Lanka and gradually develop its benefits after colonial time in 1948 too.
Since then, Sri Lanka producing world best wide range of coconut-based products and export all over the world to full fill human needs.

Sri Lanka has been exporting coconut-based products since the 19th century, when the country was still under British colonial rule. Over the years, the industry has grown and evolved in a number of ways, and today, Sri Lanka is the fourth-largest exporter of coconut products to the world.

From a market perspective, emerging economies in Latin American markets, Eastern Europe, and East Asia have recorded a higher percentage of growth.