Sri Lanka, Oct. 15 -- This year, Sri Lanka marks 150 years since rubber was first planted on its soil, a milestone that traces back to 1876, when a shipment of young Hevea brasiliensis seedlings arrived at the Henarathgoda Botanical Gardens in Gampaha. Grown from seeds smuggled out of the Amazon by British botanist Henry Wickham and germinated at Kew Gardens in London, these saplings had travelled further than any crop had before them. Their arrival placed Ceylon at the very origin of Asia's commercial rubber industry, a distinction the country still holds a century and a half later.

As Sri Lanka celebrates this anniversary, the Planters' Association of Ceylon (PA) representing the managers and stewards of the nation's plantation sector ...