Sri Lankan firm to provide model research centre in Qatar

Serendip Horticulture has been awarded a tender by the Ministry of Agriculture in Qatar which has to be completed within six months. Under this the Sri Lankan company will recommend a functional and operational model for the Research Centre in Qatar, which will consist of research agendas, management models, networking, sustainability, biosafety, etc. The objective is to give a model that will function as a Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in the Gulf Region,” said Serendib Chairman Dilip de Silva.

The company had a formal launch at Hotel Topaz, Kandy recently with university academics and scientists from the Department of Agriculture in attendance. Prof. Buddhi Marambe, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture in his address said that “What Serendib Horticulture has achieved today is something everyone should be proud of. We will give our whole hearted support to take this project forward and to establish a name for Sri Lanka.”

Serndib Horticulture Technologies which commenced as an exporter of ornamental plants took a strategic decision three years ago to diversify into Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. The company has already the biggest commercial tissue culture laboratory in Sri Lanka, producing over 3.5 million plants this year. The orders are expected to double within the next two years.

De Silva explained that the decision to diversify was taken due to the limited product range available in Sri Lanka and the competition that existed then for foliage plants within Sri Lanka and overseas. “ Everyone was doing foliage business in Sri Lanka. The market for Sri Lankan products overseas was diminishing. Countries in Africa and Central America are producing the same varieties that were been produced in Sri Lanka producing at a lesser cost, which was less than 50%.

Dutch companies are investing in these countries to grow the same products which Sri Lanka produces and it was only a matter of time before the produce comes to the market. Sri Lankan companies are going to have a very difficult time to exist in this business,” said de Silva.

He said that they saw this situation three years ago and decided to get into a highly technical field in horticulture. The beginning to this, he said, was a tender to do a feasibility study for a Regional Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in Qatar, which the company applied two years ago.

He further said that from a list of many institutes who applied from all over the world, Serendib won the tender and was awarded the contract in January this year. De Silva said that the company has consultants working from many institutes. The University of Peradeniya, Michigan State University, Northern Iowa State University are some of the institutes working with the company.