Increasing coffee in the plantation economy
Some months back in an article to the business pages of the Sunday Times I advocated that immediate attention should be drawn to the need of diversification and some of the tea plantations should be converted to Coffee. I was delighted to learn from an article that was published in The Sunday Times Business of March 9 that a major stakeholder has already
undertaken to diversify tea estates to coffee. This is indeed a welcome sign. It appears that certain conditions have compelled this organisation to diversify.
In 2015, Sri Lanka produced 340 million kg of tea per year. Last year this dropped to 250 million kg which is a significant drop. This was partly due to the ridiculous ban of the import of fertilisers and chemicals by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government.
Sri Lanka has the lowest productivity level compared with other tea growing countries. It is 34 kg per day in North India, 48 kg in South India and 60 kg in Kenya compared to 20 kg in Sri Lanka
The government’s decision to increase the plantation workers’ wages from Rs.1300 to 1700 per day will further increase the rising cost of production. Rs.1700 per day is higher than the national minimum wages per day.
All these facts points to the urgent need for immediate action to be taken to diversify the tea plantations.
In the good old days Ceylon tea was most popular in the European countries. They developed an aristocrat tea culture where it was a ceremony to serve tea in a pot with milk and sugar in different bowls. With time becoming an important factor and the advance of quick instant drinks like coca cola and Pepsi, this brought in an end to this age old traditions and customs. Demand for high grown high quality upcountry teas for the European markets dropped drastically. With a view to arrest this trend the TRI made gallant efforts to introduce instant tea to compete with instant coffee and other instant beverages in the late seventies.
Unfortunately rivalry among scientists resulted in abandoning these significant programmes. There was a running battle between two chemists and the pioneer in the initiatives taken to produce instant teas Dr. R.K. Wicremasingha was transferred to the Hantana Sub Station from the Bio Chemistry division of the TRI at Talawakele. That was the end of the efforts to produce formulae for instant teas.
There are very good reasons why the country should serious think of diversifying tea plantations at least in the mid country to coffee plantations.
With the drop in demand for high quality up country teas the worst to suffer was the mid country tea planters. Tea markets in these regions shifted from European markets to West Asian markets whose consumers wanted an entirely different blend. They needed a very strong tea and the small scale planters in the low country reaped benefits at a cost to the good name Sri Lanka had maintained as producers of good tea. Two leaves and a bud is now in the shade, we see even four leaves and a bud and we drink rubbish dried tea leaves.
Cost of producion of coffee is very much less than that of the cost of production of tea. Tea needs 1200 workers per hectare whereas coffee needs only 25 per cent of that. Tea has to be harvested every seven days whereas coffee is harvested only once a year. It needs less fertiliser and chemical weedicides.
There is no fear of a coffee blight (as it did centures ago) hitting the industry again as scientific research has made excellent advances to control the pests and fungi of blight.
Sri Lanka as an island has a unique opportunity to produce coffee with a high flavour not available to other coffee growing countries. Sri Lanka can also easily match the price with a low cost of production.
The Government should offer a subsidy for diversifying plantation industry by switching over to coffee, cocoa and even spices. A Coffee Research Institute should be set up by converting the TRI Sub Station at Hantana for this purpose.
Scientists in Sri Lanka are worth their weight in gold. Every possibility must be provided to make them a happy and a contented force and prevent possible brain drain. Towards this end create a ‘Unified Transferable Scientific Service’ covering all research institutes in Sri Lanka.
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