Sri Lanka entrepreneur cum inventor has designed a special barn automation system powered by electricity and paddy husks to dry tobacco leaves.
This is the first time such a system has being introduced to the world tobacco industry.
The inventor, H. J. Weerasinghe from Dambulla has been engaged as a supplier of tobacco (in dried form) to the company.
“Unlike with most other crops grown locally, CTC pays an average price of Rs. 400 per kilo for tobacco produced, ensuring farmer families with a guaranteed monthly income and hence there is keen interest to grow tobacco.”
He said traditionally paddy husk is being manually fed to the machine and due to this sometimes leaves get overheated. “Hence I designed an automated system which automatically takes in the paddy husk and heats up the leaves to the required temperature. Due to this system environmental pollution too is minimised. A unique feature of the system is that there is no paddy husk ash for disposal and only a liquid is left behind. In addition more leaves too could be handled per day due to the new machine.”
He said that he is now commercially ready to market this product at a price of around Rs. 65,000. CTC Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Michael Koest said they are amased with the invention and will certainly help it to be marketed overseas where traditional methods are being used to dry tobacco.“It would help him (Weerasinghe) to earn foreign exchange through the machine sales.
Ceylon Tobacco Company PLC (CTC) has a history of over 100 years in Sri Lanka during which time it has become an integral part of the country’s agriculture and business sectors.
The company’s involvement in the agricultural sector extends over 70 years with leaf growing operations starting as far back as the 1950’s.
“CTC offers tobacco famers the assurance of purchase through the forward contract system meaning that the full crop of tobacco grown by them is purchased by the company at a pre-agreed, competitive price,” he said.
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