Category: Agriculture

Oct 27, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run tea promotion and regulatory body will buy large stocks of tea at auctions in Colombo this week, in a bid to support prices, government officials and brokers said.

Oct 26, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s government will guarantee loans from banks to the tea trade to revive the Colombo auctions where prices have plunged and half the teas remained unsold this week, industry officials said.The industry was also considering extending the time limit for settling cash payments for the sale of tea don […]

Oct 25, 2008 (LBO) – In Sri Lanka’s deep south, small tea farmers are feeling the pinch from a collapsing commodity bubble, as a worldwide meldown of financial and asset prices gathers momentum on a long expected deflationary collapse. The brokers are running a sophisticated finance business, managing the risk of independent factories and effectively […]

Oct 24, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Tea Board Friday said it was advising producers to manufacture only good quality tea and reduce output in an effort to stabilise prices which have crashed in recent weeks.About half the volume of low grown teas remained unsold at the auction this week, creating cash flow problems for […]

Oct 23, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is offering a fertilizer subsidy to small tea farmers three times a year, at a cost of 4.7 billion rupees a year, officials said, while Colombo tea prices slid on a commodity bubble collapse. Sri Lanka’s populist vote-buying subsidies have been blamed for the large budget deficits in […]

Oct 23, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan private tea factory owners are asking for a six billion rupee bank over draft bailout package to help them get over the crisis caused by the crash in prices. “The sudden, massive drop in prices and large quantities of that category of teas offered remaining unsold either because […]

Oct 22, 2008 (LBO) – A top Sri Lankan agro enterprise has warned that state controls of prices would block quality gains of agricultural produce with government slapping price ceilings on rice in the wake of a global bubble in April. “In the question of price control of rice what has happened is that you […]

Oct 21, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea auction prices tumbled Tuesday amidst a collapsing global commodity bubble, though brokers said volumes picked up and an approaching winter was likely to bring more buying interest.“We’re confident that, while the market won’t go back to pre-currency drop rates, demand will pick up and stocks will begin […]

Oct 17, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices fell on lower demand at the Colombo auctions this week, continuing a downward trend that mirrors the slump in global commodities, brokers said. To receive instant alerts from LBO on your Dialog mobile type ‘act (space) lbo’ and send to 678 The lower prices means lower […]

TAIPEI, September 26, 2008 (AFP) – Taiwan’s Pizza Hut said Friday it had pulled grated cheese from its outlets after they were found to contain unacceptably high levels of the industrial chemical melamine. “Our delivery shops island-wide have stopped supplies of the grated cheese after tests for melamine showed higher than the allowed levels. We […]

Sept 24, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Hayleys group plans to increase high value vegetable cultivation for export after a pilot project with US aid put farmers in a position to supply top food brands like McDonalds and Unilever.The Hayleys Group is the sole exporter of gherkins from Sri Lanka, processing more than 8,000 tonnes […]

COLOMBO, September 25, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s tea exports rose more than 40 percent in the first eight months of the year and are on track to earn a record 1.4 billion dollars this year, the tea board said Thursday. Sri Lanka is the world’s fourth-largest producer of tea behind China, India and Kenya. […]