Hayleys Agriculture exploits war-affected Tamils in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2018, 08:24 GMT]
Colombo-based Hayleys Agriculture, the largest exporter of fruits and vegetables, is exploiting the poverty-stricken war-affected Tamil farmers at Pirappaiyadi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) division by facilitating 300,000 rupees loan per family and thereby locking their lands to a programme of workforce slavery, Tamil civil sources in the division said. The State-owned Bank of Ceylon is providing the loans in the deceptive project, the sources further said.

World Vision, which is an Evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organisation, was supporting the villagers earlier with natural agriculture.

But, the exploitative business conglomerate from Colombo has started to offer so-called lucrative loans. So far, 50 families have been absorbed into the deceptive programme of slavery and exploitation.

The BOC loan is bound to fruit farming in 1 acre per family. The farmers have to sell the fruits to Hayleys Agriculture at a low rate of 26 rupees per kilo. And this money goes to the bank to cover the pay the interest.

When the farmers are unable to pay down the debt, the lands are legally seized and sold to outsiders.

This tactic is also used as means for transferring public lands to people describing it as development assistance and then exploiting the families of their workforce and finally seizing the lands for Sinhalicisation of Tamil lands, the civil officials further said urging Tamil politicians to take up the issue of poverty-stricken Tamil farmers.

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