Category: Agriculture

Apr 23, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s dairy sector is improving with strong competition among processors expanding demand for milk and helping farmers, the US Agency for International Development said. USAID has boosted the sector by partnering with a private company to increase milk production, it said in a statement. A USAID study showed that […]

Apr 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s plantations companies needs financial support to replant ageing trees as production costs rose, an industry official said as the state held back proceeds from an industry development levy. Dhamitha Perera, chairman of the Planters’ Association which represents corporate tea producers, said the costs of replanting estates with old […]

Apr 10, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices have fallen after hitting record highs at recent auctions, although still higher than last year, squeezing profit margins of producers faced with rising costs, brokers said. While prices of high grown teas made largely by plantations companies fell, those of low grown teas, cultivated mainly by […]

Apr 06, 2010 (LBO) – A project to help farmers in Sri Lanka’s former war zone by Hayleys, a big exporter of gherkins to global food chains, has won an award from its partner, the US Agency for International Development. A USAID statement said the project was chosen from 700 such initiatives around the world […]

Apr 02, 2010 (LBO) – Lanka Milk Foods (LMF), a milk powder packer which is part of Sri Lanka’s Distilleries group, said it has begun production at a new plant with a capacity of 9.5 million litres of cow milk. LMF acquired them in 2001 when it bought 90 percent of the shares of Ambewela […]

April 01, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s listed Bogowantalawa Tea Estates said it was starting a two million dollar iced tea unit with a US firm in which the firm would take up a 25 percent stake. The joint venture will export packaged iced tea to the United States. The company said it was teaming […]

Mar 31, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Malwatte Valley Plantations said 2009 annual profits fell 99.3 percent to 2.15 million rupees from a year ago with a big loss in the December quarter on higher wage costs and gratuity provisions. Its financial results filed with the Colombo stock exchange showed December quarter losses shot up […]

QIXINGCUN, March 29, 2010 (AFP) – Peasant farmer Dong Guicheng wakes up every morning hoping for rain, but each day a crippling drought instead brings more disappointment and desperation. In a scene repeated by millions of people in a vast area of China’s parched southwest, Dong treks daily to a dwindling reservoir to fetch scarce […]

Mar 26, 2010 9LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Watawala Plantations, which manufactures and sells branded teas, has decided to set up a fully owned subsidiary to sell its locally branded products, a stock exchange filing said. The new unit, named Watawala Marketing, will handle the firm’s fast moving consumer goods from April 1. The firm, a […]

Mar 25, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has introduced a quality certification programme for tea exports to ensure cleaner teas are sent to overseas markets, devoid of stones and other contamination now found during pre-export screening, officials said. Random test will be done on products to ensure they conform to the standards after certification is […]

Mar 23, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea production in February was back to the usual levels having recovered from the effects of drought and a market crash last year, Tea Board statistics showed. A total of 23.5 million kilos of tea, including green tea, was produced in February 2010, up sharply from the 12. […]

Mar 22, 2010 (LBO) – Buying tea for stock during the commodities crash in the last quarter of 2008 helped boost profits at Finlays Colombo group last year, the Sri Lankan company has revealed. The firm, part of the Swire group of the UK, said its tea packing business made higher profits in the first […]