Category: Agriculture

June 23, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka Tea Board is seeking new laws to tighten quality control on exports and prevent shipments of what are considered teas below a certain minimum standard, a senior official said. Sri Lanka Tea Board chairman Lalith Hettiarachchi said national legislation was required to enforce the ISO 3720 standard […]

June 21, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s billion-dollar tea industry remains too divided, squabbling over trivial matters, and is losing out on benefits it can otherwise win as other industries have done, a senior trade official said. But, Akbarally warned, the gains from high tea prices could be eroded by soaring costs. Production costs shot […]

June 19, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices appear to be heading for a correction with many grades from the estates easing at this week’s Colombo auctions where a larger volume was on offer, brokers said. “In fact the previous record for the period was 138 million kg in 2006 in which year Sri […]

June 16, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka must have a clear cut agriculture policy, especially for paddy, without resorting to short term solutions, if the country is to tackle the approaching food security issues, agriculture professionals said. “We have been having ad hoc approaches to food security and food policy,” said Nimal Ranaweera, a former […]

June 15, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea estate community, which plucked the leaf that kept the economy afloat for more than a century, has not reaped the benefits of the trade, says a new study on the link between trade and poverty. “The estate sector in Sri Lanka is a prime example of trade […]

UDAWALAWE, June 14, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Saturday released eight orphaned baby elephants into the jungle after rescuing them from near certain death, wildlife officials said. Official figures show about 150 are killed annually by villagers whose crops are destroyed by marauding elephants that claim the lives of 50 farmers each year. Many […]

June 12, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices remained strong for the third week running at this week’s auctions in Colombo with firm demand from the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States, brokers said. The strong market for tea, along with rubber and palm oil, prompted investors on the Colombo bourse to […]

June 09, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Horana Plantations, which is managed by the Ceylon Theatres group has capped management fees to 15 million rupees a year, the company said. In the second stage the estates were sold to managing agents. Despite gaining ownership, the management companies kept the fees and used them to finance […]

June 05, 2008 (2008) Sri Lankan tea prices appear to have bottomed out with widespread demand returning to the Colombo auctions which have been enjoying a strong market this year, brokers said. “There was improved wide spread demand,” Forbes and Walker Tea Brokers said in a report on this week’s auction. “For the second consecutive […]

June 04, 2008 (FAO) Food production in Sri Lanka has been affected not only by high oil prices, bad weather and storage and distribution problem but by terrorism as well, the island’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa has said.Addressing the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) conference on food security in Rome, Rajapaksa called on the UN organisation […]

June 03, 2008 (LBO) – Floods caused by heavy rains in southern Sri Lanka have disrupted cropping on tea plots but no serious shortfall is anticipated unless the rains continue, trade officials said. “Lasting damage is not anticipated unless earthslips cover tea bushes.” He said he expects floods to subside in 2-3 days unless the […]

May 27, 2008 (LBO) – The fall in tea prices in recent weeks owing to the seasonal increase in supply and lower quality has put producers’ margins under pressure, brokers said. It came during the island’s Western quality season when teas from the western slopes of the central hills are at their best quality and […]