Tea industry to get greener

by Gamini WARUSHAMANA

The tea industry of Sri Lanka is looking forward to be greener by introducing sustainable and environmental friendly cultivation practices and make strong eco-friendly tea brands. Forest Garden Tea (FGT) is a new tea brand introduced by Sri Lanka. A full day seminar was organised to make strong Public-Private partnership to promote FGT cultivation by Rainforest Rescue International last week.

The seminar emphasised the need for the transformation of Sri Lanka’s tea cultivation to more responsible environment friendly sustainable cultivation methods. For over a century the Sri Lanka tea industry has grown to a strong position. Its contribution to the national economy is huge. It has the most famous Ceylon Tea brand. However, the industry has destroyed vast areas of valuable forests and eco systems in Sri Lanka and the destruction continues as a result of unsustainable conventional cultivation practices.

Deforestation continues for new cultivations and causes environment issues such as soil erosion, reduced water security and bio diversity. Excess use of chemical fertiliser and other agro chemicals have created multiple environment and health issues.

The industry has also faced various issues due to these environmental impacts. The cost of production of tea has continuously increased over the last decades. Productivity of the plantation sector is reducing and today the plantation sector accounts for only for 30 percent of the green tea leaves produced although the sector covers 60 percent of total tea lands, speakers at the seminar said.

The Deputy General Manager of Tea Small Holdings Development Authority Cyril Manikkage said that with the shift to organic farming, tea small-holders can get a lot of benefits. Sri Lanka’s tea replanting rate is very low and is at 1 percent and this is common in small-holdings as well as the plantation sector. The reason is low investment on replanting. The high input cost is a reason for the lower replanting rate.

Farmers get subsidised fertiliser and it is a relief to them. Non availability of skilled workers, land degradation and unaffordability of modern agriculture practices are the three other issues faced by the small-holders, he said.

Director, Tea Research Institute (TRI) Dr. Sarath Abeysinghe spoke of the recent research of the TRI on organic tea farming. There were several concepts in our tea industry and earlier we focused on value addition. Today we talk about different concepts-organic farming and eco-friendly tea cultivation. The most important thing is introducing these concepts to the small-holders who account for the bulk of the green tea supply.

In the 1950s we shifted to VP teas and achieved much. Yield and productivity increased significantly but it narrowed down genetic diversity of tea. Today we have successfully tested seed tea verities that are with high yield and some qualities such as drought resistance, he said.

Koen van Laar of the Royal Netherlands Embassy said that the demand for organic products is increasing and consumers are willing to pay more for products that are produced in an environment friendly manner.

The Netherlands government is interested in this project and decided to support it. Colombia produces rainforest coffee and Sri Lanka is now ready to produce tea. This move will increase profitability of the Sri Lankan tea industry and make it sustainable, he said.

Forest Garden Tea is something beyond organic tea. Organic cultivation is only one aspect. It will be the finest tea in the world that gives you excellent taste and aroma as well as provide a home for wild life, grown in a system that protects the environment and gives better income to growers. Forest Garden products are certified as being produced in a holistic environment that ensures clean organic products, farm sustainability, social equity, bio diversity conservation and reduction in carbon foot print.

Organic tea production in Sri Lanka has increased from 0.78 percent in 1987 to 3.3 percent in 2010. Productivity is around 400-576 kg of made tea/ha and it is less than the yield of conventional tea.