The Sri Lankan
Tea industry
History
Large tracts of the Central Highlands were cleared and densely planted with
coffee bushes by British planters during the coffee boom of the 1830s. Within 40 years Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then known, became one of the world’s largest coffee producers. The coffee rust fungus found its way to the island in 1869 and slowly eroded the coffee fields and by the end of the century most
estates had converted to tea or rubber. Tea replaced coffee as the key export and Sri Lanka soon became second only to India in exports of black tea. The many tea
plantations in the area, described as the ‘densest monoculture in the world’, rely on the monsoon rains which sweep in from the southwest between May and September.
Traditionally, the industry was dominated by large British-owned but Sri Lankan-run estates. In 1975 the government nationalised all estates over 20 hectares and established two bodies, the Janatha Estates Development Board and the Sri Lanka State Plantations Corporation, to run the large estates. These large state-run corporations were judged by many as inefficient and a drain on the economy in terms of government subsidies. Consequently the industry was re-privatised in the 1990s with 22 private management companies taking over the estate operations.
Today
Tea is Sri Lanka’s second most valuable export after garments. Tea output has increased by around 30% in the last decade and stood at 303,230 tonnes in 2003. The dramatic increase is attributable to structural reforms which saw the privatisation of former state-run plantations and huge investment in the modernisation of processing factories. Sri Lanka exports around 95% of tea production and is now the world’s largest tea exporter.
Devaluation of the Sri Lankan rupee has made Sri Lankan tea more competitive, enticing cash-strapped and quality-conscious countries in the Russian Federation and Middle East to switch to Sri Lanka's comparatively cheaper teas. Russia and UAE are Sri Lanka's biggest buyers, followed by Syria and the declining Turkish market. Sri Lanka now supplies just 4% of tea imported to the UK compared to 25% in the 1950s.
A combination of devaluation and declining auction prices has hit foreign exchange earnings, vital to the country’s economy. In 2002, Sri Lanka’s 290,500 tonnes of tea exports were worth $651m, while the smaller volume of 268,000 tonnes exported in 1997 was worth $717m.
Workforce
Tea is harvested all year round and therefore needs a large permanent workforce. In the 1800s, Sinhalese peasants augmented their incomes at coffee harvest times, but they were unimpressed with the low status and poor wages offered by tea plantations and were reluctant to move away permanently from their own farms and villages. The solution was to import a cheap and almost inexhaustible supply of Tamil labourers from southern India.
Today, 99% of tea plantation
workers are ethnic Tamils – descendents of those same migrants lured by promises of wealth 150 years ago.
Labour and Social
Conditions Tea estates were originally established in relatively unpopulated areas and were reliant on the Tamil workforce that was culturally distinct and separate from the indigenous Sinhalese population. The squalid housing and health conditions endured by this underclass are well documented, but employment legislation evolved along with the growth of the tea industry and estate owners have for many years been legally obliged to provide basic welfare facilities to minimum standards.
Comprehensive national legislation covers working conditions, (equal) wage rates, sick pay, maternity leave, freedom of association, health and safety etc. Workers contribute to retirement lump sum and pension schemes. In addition, plantations are required to provide a range of social services including housing, water supply, latrines, healthcare, and crèches.
Men do not usually pluck tea, but prepare the land, spray pesticides, prune, work in te tea factories or as drivers, or supervise the pluckers. Their work is often completed by lunchtime. Men receive the same wage as women despite working substantially fewer hours.
Most tea workers have permanent employment contracts and can look forward to a pension and retirement lump sum. They have secure housing and free access to doctors and clinics on the estate. In general, conditions for tea workers are now better in many ways than for the many thousands of day labourers who struggle to get by in the unregulated sector without permanent employment or benefits.
More reviews about the The Hindu