Smallholder Plantations Entrepreneurship Development Programme (SPEnDP)

General

The programme aims to improve the livelihoods of 8,700 marginalized smallholder tea producers households of Hadabima and Mahaweli resettlements in the intermediate zone of Moneragala willing to take up rubber. It intends to improve the productivity of the old tea plantation lands and new rubber-based cultivations by improving access rights to the land under out-grower schemes, and by supporting diversification and development of out-grower systems for tea and rubber. Land and natural resource governance related activities aim to ensure land tenure security and land access to the targeted people, which 35% will be women, by applying sustainable land use systems. It intends to provide support for mapping and surveying of smallholder lots to verify official ownership and to support community mobilization and capacity building. The programme implemented the initiative of MPI and MC S-PMU, Land Reform Commission to reduce the land utilization fee on a 3-tier formula.