Biomass Supplies
Biomass Supplies
Developing inclusive supply chain by integrating smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka.
BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Alumni
SECTOR
Agriculture, Food & Beverage
HEADQUARTERS
Sri Lanka
REGION OF INITIATIVE
Asia & Pacific
SDG CONTRIBUTION
RELATED NEWS
Biomass Supplies, a Sri Lankan subsidiary of Biomass Group – the visionary renewable energy company – is developing Sri Lanka’s abundant sustainable energy resources through innovative partnerships with the country’s smallholder farmers. Biomass has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to boost the incomes of 40,000 farmers – at least 70 percent of them women – by 2018 and improve their yields through training in sustainable agriculture practices.
As a lower middle-income country, Sri Lanka has seen notable progress in reducing poverty from 15 percent in 2006 to less than 9 percent in 2010. However, rural poverty remains the country’s main challenge: nine out of ten of Sri Lanka’s poor people live in rural areas, where a 30-year conflict destroyed countless livelihoods. With no fossil-derived energy resources, the majority of Sri Lanka’s electric power is generated from heavy fuel oil, which is harmful to the environment.
Biomass Supplies is tackling rural poverty in the country with an inclusive business model based on one of Sri Lanka’s most important assets: its bountiful supply of biomass. According to some estimates, the country has the potential to process 54 million tons of biomass annually, which far exceeds Sri Lanka’s biomass power needs.
The primary source of biomass used by the company is Gliricidia, a fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing tree that grows wild throughout the country. In addition to generating incomes for rural communities, Gliricidia leaves improves the soil, which leads to higher yields of local farmers’ crops. Its leaves are also rich in proteins and can be used as animal fodder and fertilizer.
To date, Biomass Supplies has already conducted over 500 farmer training courses in Trincomalee District and 40,000 small farmers have been registered as fuelwood suppliers – 70 percent of them women. By the project’s fifth year, Biomass estimates that each farming family will have the opportunity to earn an additional US $2000 annually by selling Gliricidia branches and other crops to the company.