Category: Agriculture

March 01, 2007 (LBO) – At the Water’s Edge in Battaramulla on a humid Monday evening, tea drinkers and cocktail fans find common ground ranging from chivas regal to green tea. Here in this upmarket golf club house, six kilometers from Colombo city, tea-tenders are busy dreaming up concoctions to serve up tea in variations that, […]

February 27 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s rubber trade has cried foul at government moves to deny them cash collected from the sector for its own development, less than a month after tea traders protested the misuse of an industry fund.The Ceylon Rubber Traders Association (CRTA) said Tuesday that the industry had been officially informed that […]

PARIS, Feb 13, 2007 (AFP) – The International Energy Agency raised its 2007 world oil demand estimates on Tuesday, saying that consumption has dropped in industrialised countries for the first time for two decades but was rising strongly in emerging economies such as China. Demand in countries outside the OECD industrialised nations would be 3.2 […]

Feb 08, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is studying the feasibility of growing a new oil-bearing plant in marginal state land to make bio-diesel with private sector partners, an official said.Countries such as the United States have given tax-breaks for alternative fuels, and blended bio-diesel such as B5 with 5 percent vegetable based diesel is already […]

February 03 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea crop is set to drop in January after record earnings in the past year, as unfavourable weather slowed a recovery of strike-hit estates, industry officials said. “Estates which normally send had 8,000 to 10,000 kilograms to the auctions, are sending about 2,500 kilograms,” says Lal Alawattegama, of Asia Siyaka […]

LONDON, Jan 11, 2007 (AFP) – World oil prices sank below 53 dollars per barrel on Thursday to mid-2005 low points on healthy US energy stockpiles and warm weather in the northern hemisphere. The latest sharp falls have sparked speculation that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries could soon hold an emergency production meeting. London’s […]

PARIS, Jan 9, 2007 (AFP) – Bad news for Britons: adding milk to tea ruins the health benefits of the drink, according to a Germany study published on Tuesday.Tea has complex compounds called polyphenols which are believed to help the arteries to relax or dilate, thus enabling a smoother flow of blood.Scientists led at the […]

January 4, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka shipped a record 28 million kilos of tea in November 2006, amidst weeks’ long trade union action that cost over a billion rupees, commodity brokers Asia Siyaka said Thursday. Despite strike action by unions demanding a wage to cope with a soaring costs of living Sri Lanka exported a […]

December 21, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s newly minted wage deal for estate workers is expected to hike cost of sales by up to 23 percent for plantation companies with high exposure to tea, analysts said Thursday. Plantation companies and estate worker trade unions agreed on a daily wage of 260 rupees on Tuesday, followings weeks […]

December 19, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s estate workers clinched a 260 rupee a day wage deal on Tuesday, ending weeks of strikes on tea and rubber estates that resulted in losses of over a billion rupees. Over 90 percent of workers are represented by trade unions the Ceylon Workers Congress, the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers […]

December 18 (LBO) – Striking estate workers have been asked to get back to work, with the Ceylon Workers Congress agreeing to resume wage talks with plantation companies, officials said Monday.“The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) feels that this situation has gone too far and we cannot wait for others to deliver,” R Yogarajan, Vice President of […]

December 14, 2006 (LBO) – Trade union action, wage hikes and high fertiliser prices are proving a volatile cocktail of problems for Sri Lanka’s plantation sector, with dismal predictions for early next year. Green leaf production on Sri Lanka’s tea estates grew a negative 0.7 percent in the third quarter of this year over the […]