Global Rubber Industries (Pvt) Ltd. (GRI) has opened a Natural Rubber Collection center in Sri Lanka to support local rubber tree farmers. The center will help farmers earn fair value for their work to produce pure natural rubber.
GRI says Sri Lanka's climate and soil make it "perfect" for growing natural rubber trees. GRI relies on those trees for all of its tire manufacturing, and says the investment in and selection of fine raw materials for its finished products is important to their overall quality.
As part of its GreenX Circle initiative, the center opened on June 25 in the Monaragala District of Sri Lanka.
“We are a company built on quality, authenticity and integrity," says GRI CEO Mahesha Ranasoma. "We will help the rural farming community to achieve their ambitions. The natural rubber sourced from smallholder rubber farmers in Sri Lanka to build our high-grade agriculture tires are fitted on the machinery of farmers across the world, creating a unique value chain which begins and ends from 'farmer to farmer.' This is a concept that GRI has created and launched at Agritechnica as the GreenX Circle connecting rubber farmers from our motherland with farmers across the world."
GRI says it will nurture this unique connection, extending its stewardship to take care of the communities in its wider eco-system. "Agriculture farmers feed the world and we see the interdependency of the three principal communities of the GreenX Circle: the rubber farmers, the GRI community and the agriculture farmers whose produce we consume," the company says.
“We aim to unite farmers by underscoring the fact that farmers connect the world we live today," says Ranasoma. "The opening of this new rubber collection center is an important step towards building our GreenX Circle."
The center also will be a meeting spot for rubber farmers belonging to the GreenX Circle to hold regular forums on related topics, as well as training programs.
GRI produces radial agriculture tires, construction tires and material handling solid tires and has offices in nine countries, with sales in more than 50 countries.
