Dairy farming, eucalyptus plantations among options:

Tea industry goes for innovations

by P.Krishnaswamy

The hybrid cows in the dairy farm

The triplet calves

One and a half century-old tea industry is now in strains due to competition from other tea producing countries, erratic and unpredictable climatic conditions, high production costs and discouraging price fluctuations in the international tea auctions. Some of the innovative Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) have introduced other projects, mainly dairy farming, in some of their estates as additional source of revenue to offset overheads.

The Sunday Observer staffer visited Lonach Estate in Watawala, an estate under the management of the Watawala Plantations where a Dairy Farm is in operation as a successful corporate venture for the last three years with 200 head of milch cows, modern machinery for milking, chillers, a compost site and a small bio-gas project as part of the dairy farm project. The popular Zesta Tea and 'Watawala Kahata' are products of the Watawala Plantations.

Manager of Lonach Estate A. Jayaram said that he is managing the dairy farm under the able guidance of Project Manager Govindasamy Krishnamoorthy who is well-qualified and has the expertise on such projects.

A special variety of grass, the CO 03 Grass, is being grown in an extent of 25 hectares for the cattle. They get an average of 1500 litres of milk per day, Jayaram said.

Their chillers have the capacity to preserve 5000 litres of milk. He was exhilarated in showing the triplet calves given birth by one of their cows recently and said that there had never been a birth of triplet calves recorded in the history of Sri Lanka.

The Department of Animal Production and Health along with the Provincial Director, Central Province, congratulated the Lonach farm management team on this rare occurrence, he said. Other details as apprised by the Estate Manager were:

The Bio-Gas project commissioned in December last year produces enough gas for operating the farm machinery and the exhaust fans.

At the compost site located in land with 10 acres in extent, they produce 1000 kg of organic fertilizer per day. They use it for their tea plantations under the 'forking and applying' process while also supplying the excess to other estates. Cow dung, dust tea, and other waste material are used for producing fertiliser using chopper machines.

Of the total workforce of 350, about 80 are employed in the dairy farm while the rest are in the tea sector. The fertiliser slurry is pumped to plants and grass to save on other fertilisers.

On the estate they also have 15 hectares of eucalyptus trees for timber purposes and and 30 hectares of other trees for firewood fuel.

Re-planting of tea is also being done in the estate at the rate of two hectares per year to maintain the stability of tea.