The cinnamon team’s day started much unlike the first day ended – well rested and fresh of mind. After a hearty breakfast of fruit, flatbreads, eggs and (much to my surprise) sausages we set out towards the nearby town of Matara to visit the agriculture faculty of the University of Rahuna.
Relaxing on tropical beaches and sampling the fine local cuisine aside, we are in Sri Lanka to study a topic relevant to our MBA’s International Enterprise elective module. We are researching the concept of fair trade and its application to the cinnamon industry. Our pre-trip research suggested that fair trade has failed to gain much ground amongst cinnamon farmers here so we have decided to assess its suitability and feasibility.

On arrival at the university we were ushered up to the Dean’s office where we were met with a welcome blast of air conditioning and a nice cup of tea. The eerily quiet campus was explained to us as being a result of an academic staff strike so we were probably quite lucky to see Professor Subrisinghe and his colleagues. We first headed out to the nearby government cinnamon research station where we had the opportunity here about some of the work they are doing to help the nation’s farmers improve the yield and quality of their cinnamon plants. We were hosted by the eccentric Dr Viyah Singhe who described to us the work he and his team carry out in a, at times, hard to understand but nonetheless entertaining manner. It was interesting to learn about the challenges the Sri Lankan cinnamon farmers have to progress their businesses by processing the raw cinnamon they grow. It seems that much of the value, and therefore much of the profit, in the supply chain takes place in the conversion of the cinnamon coils into the finished products. This process requires expensive machinery to operate, something which is not accessible the average cinnamon farmer. After lunch in the town centre (no prizes for guessing…curry) we headed back to the university to see some of the tools they have developed to try and better automate the cinnamon farming tasks. This it turns out is increasingly important as the Sri Lankan youth shun the traditional jobs available in the cinnamon industry and the stigma attached to the role, a problem that the mechanisation of the process would help address.

Tomorrow promises a visit to our first cinnamon producer – Rathna Cinnamon. Most cinnamon farms are small family run organisations but Rathna are a profit making business who produce on a larger scale and export coils to Mexico. It will be interesting to see how and if fair trade certification could benefit them.

Interesting and/or slightly odd observation of the day: Sri Lankans are not adverse to using an umbrella whilst motorcycling along main roads to keep off the rain.