Category: Agriculture

July 13, 2011 (LBO) – Labour productivity on Sri Lankan tea estates has to be improved if regional plantations companies are to survive and afford wage hikes in future, industry officials said. Lalith Obeysekere, chairman of the Planters’ Association which represents regional tea plantations companies, said the island’s tea estates had higher production costs and […]

July 12, 2011 (LBO) – A group of agro firms have warned that Sri Lanka may run short of pesticides for the next growing season unless a controversy over the presence of arsenic is resolved quickly with independent testing. ‘Croplife Sri Lanka’ an industry grouping representing 26 agro chemical firms said arsenic is not an […]

July 03, 2011 (LBO) – State-run Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation is losing money, has low productivity of its lands, and is depending on Treasury handouts to operate, a finance ministry report said. The Cashew Corporation made one percent of the country’s annual production of 8,000 metric tonnes but there wasn’t enough focus on developing cashew […]

July 01, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s tea exports in May 2011 rose five percent to 25 million kilos from a year ago with earnings also up six percent to 12. 8 billion rupees, brokers said. Exports of tea packets, on which earnings are more than bulk exports. were also up after a change in […]

July 01, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will launch a globally recognized industry standard for Ceylon Tea early next year addressing consumer concerns, including ethical trade and environmental issues, Ceylon Tea Traders Association Chairman Avi de Silva said. If a competitor country does not have any such laws, their firms will still be compliant with […]

June 22, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka aims to bring in new laws restricting sale of coconut land to extents below five acres under efforts to prevent further reduction of acreage and to increase crops, an official said. Minister of coconut development Jagath Pushpakumara said the new laws would be introduced in parliament in about […]

June 22, 2011 (LBO) – Tea production in Sri Lanka in May 2011 fell 5. 3 percent to 32 million kilos from a year ago, according to statistics released by the Tea Board. The shortfall in production came from the high and medium elevations while low grown teas, which make up the bulk of the […]

June 16, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Bairaha Farms, a poultry firm said it is building a 360 million rupee modern broiler farm in the northwestern Puttalam district to increase its production by 15 percent over the next three years. In 2010 prices surged. “Being of a cyclical nature, the poultry business is characterised by […]

June 12, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has earned 22. 1 billion rupees from taxes imposed on several basic foods imported in to country in 2009, with sugar and milk powder bringing in the most amount of money, a media report said. The Island newspaper said the information was tabled in parliament in response to […]

June 10, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Haycarb has called for a long-term strategy to expand coconut plantations to ensure raw material availability to make activated carbon and said it is diversifying into wood- and coal-based carbons. Shortages of coconut shell charcoal, which account for almost 65 percent of the firm’s cost of production, and […]

DUBAI, June 8, 2011 (AFP) – Exotic and organic teas are wooing tea drinkers and challenging traditional black tea’s dominance as never before, tea industry experts say, as a tea factory in Dubai bids to become the world’s largest. The shift in global tea-drinking trends is felt at the Jebel Ali Free Zone, despite it […]

June 07, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Expolanka Holdings group said a lentils splitting plant owned by a subsidiary has been fully automated in a 350,000 US dollar upgrade designed to meet increasing local and international demand. The upgrade of the plant, located in Wellampitiya in Colombo, included the addition of a colour sorting machine […]