Our Story

The Ellegala family has cared for a pristine area of forest near Digana since 1896. Passed down from generation to generation, the current owner Nihal took over in 1993 and now co-manages the property with his son, Remon.

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The lands around here are known as Kandyan Forest Gardens - an ancient agro-forestry practice that creates a diverse mosaic of native trees, fruits and spices including Ceylon Black Pepper, Cloves, Nutmeg, Ceylon Cinnamon, Jackfruit and many more. This highly productive landscape also supports a huge array of wildlife, including 62 species of birds (17 endemics) spotted to date on the family land alone.

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At the heart of the family’s work in the area has always been the community. Through running a successful eco-tourism project, Eko-land has been able to provide local employment, support schools and community education and provide urgent support to those most in need. However, in the wake of COVID-19 our local villages needed more support than ever and with eco-tourism limited, Nihal and Remon decided to diversify to create new employment opportunities. Building on their experience in both organic farming and international export, Eko Land Produce was born (fulfilling a lifelong dream of Nihal)!

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The motivation of Eko Land is threefold:

1.  Supporting the community by providing jobs and a fair price for local spices and forest produce; 

2. Promoting sustainable living, organic foods and spices;

3. Providing a financial incentive for conserving high biodiversity forests  

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By working closely with local farmers and their families, Eko Land has oversight of our produce from farm to fork. Our spices, coffee and jackfruit are hand-picked and hand-prepared with care by our always-smiling community members, ensuring the highest quality produce is to be enjoyed by our consumers. 

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We are inspired to share our love of nature and living a healthy, sustainable lifestyle with as many people as we can. By consuming our products, you become a part of our story and we welcome you to the family! Feel free to contact us with any questions or to arrange a visit.

ARE WE ORGANIC?

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One of the questions we get asked most frequently is are your products organic? The answer is YES, we are organic down to our very roots, however we are not certified as organic (certified until 2019). To understand the reasoning for this it is important to understand what organic certification means in practice for smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka.

Harvesting forest produce and spices has been part of the cultural heritage of the land around us for generations upon generations. The forest type here is known as Kandyan Forest Garden, which is an ancient agroforestry method designed to sustainably grow a whole range of fruits and spices in amongst the native forest trees. This practice is inherently organic and no artificial chemicals are spread across the forest – not then, not now.

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