Deep in the center of Sri Lanka’s agricultural heartland lies Monaragala, which in early April, is simmering under unseasonable heat and humidity. A five-hour drive from the capital of Colombo, it’s home to a unique initiative: reintroducing near-forgotten ancient cotton farming practices to the region, with a modern regenerative twist.
Launched in 2025 by UK recycling and waste management firm Mygroup and run on the ground by Fibershed Sri Lanka, the Exiled project is capturing the interest of local farmers increasingly disenfranchised by the debt trap and a reliance on agrochemicals necessary to produce the region’s common crops: rice, maize, and millet. Fluctuating prices and costly fertilizers mean many farmers are trapped in a debt cycle with banks, relying on loans to survive and barely making a profit. To break out of this system, Fibershed Sri Lanka is helping farmers to convert their farmland to regenerative cotton, with a focus on fair prices paid through a cooperative enterprise — a model that existed before Sri Lanka industrialized its economy in the 1970s.
The program is still in its infancy, but is already demonstrating the potential for raw material supply chains to deliver both social and environmental impact. Mygroup, which specializes in hard to recycle materials like textiles, began leasing a disused acre of farmland in February 2025 after its director, Steve Carrie, met Fibershed Sri Lanka country lead Thilina Premjayanth while on holiday the year prior. The pilot crop, which was produced by fusing regenerative farming techniques with ancient Chena cultivation practices, yielded 280 kilograms of cotton. It is now being woven into textiles at a handloom center in Kurunegala, northwest Sri Lanka, and bought by Mygroup’s ReFactory arm for its new brand — called Exiled, after the project — launching this week.
The pilot acre and Exiled container, ready for the next season of seeds to be planted.
Photo: Megan Doyle
“Even if we hadn’t been able to get a crop of cotton, it was always going to be a success, because we left the soil in such better condition than we found it,” says Rebecca O’Leary, textiles manager at Mygroup. This year, Fibershed Sri Lanka has recruited 20 local farmers to expand the regenerative cotton program across 25 acres, and in 2027, it plans to reach 100 acres with 50 farmers. They’ve developed a cooperative, the Cotton Farmers’ Cooperative Society, to support participating farmers, training them on regenerative practices, providing interest-free loans to buy seeds and compost ingredients, and building a fund for sick pay and emergencies.
Soon, on-farm ginning and spinning hubs built from shipping containers will be operational, allowing farming families to process their own harvests, too. The cotton yarns will then be naturally dyed and woven into cloth locally, before being sent off to ReFactory’s Hull site in the UK for production into Exiled garments.
