Sri Lankan tea industry:

Existing opportunities to spur tea growth

Dr. N Yogaratnam

'It is generally accepted that the full potential of the Sri Lankan Tea industry is yet to be realized and the stakeholders should therefore exploit the wide range of existing opportunities to spur growth with a view to delivering value across the industry chain and facilitating enhanced contribution to socio-economic development. Such opportunities include, adoption of new technologies; product diversification and value addition; market diversification, linkages through partnerships and investment as well as research and development.

Dr. N Yogaratnam

However, tea like other tropical crops, still raises a number of sustainability issues, although it is the second most popular drink in the world, after water. For a number of developing countries, it is an important commodity in terms of jobs and export earnings. Tea production is labour intensive and the industry provides jobs in remote rural areas. Millions of livelihoods around the world depend on tea picking and processing.

Like many many other agricultural commodities, real primary producer prices have fallen dramatically over the last three decades. Low prices are affecting the sustainability of the tea sector, with working conditions and the livelihoods of plantation workers and small scale farmers in tea producing countries under pressure. Meanwhile, tea trade and distribution is dominated by a few international companies that benefit from stable retail prices.

Tea supply chain

Attempts have been made in the past by many researchers to look at matters pertaining to trade, production and stakeholders in international tea supply chains and have made many recommendations to various stakeholders for improving conditions, particularly for plantation workers and tea smallholders, the most vulnerable in the tea industry. Researchers have found that working conditions for pluckers are often poor, with low wages, low job and income security, discrimination along ethnic and gender lines, lack of protective gear and inadequate basic facilities, such as housing and sometimes even drinking water and food. At the same time, there is no possibility for tea plantation workers to improve working conditions, because trade unions are ineffective and/or are not representing them because most of them due to political pressure.

While tea production by smallholders is growing worldwide, their situation is often problematic because the prices they are paid for fresh tea leaves tend to be below the cost of production, among other factors. The sector's environmental footprint is considerable, with reduced biodiversity as the result of habitat conversion, high energy consumption (mainly using logged timber) and a high application of pesticides in some countries.

Environmental and ustainability

The environmental sustainability issues of tea include concerns about land conversion, contamination of soil, surface and water and logging for firewood to dry tea leaves. These are all important drivers for deforestation and loss of biodiversity in the tropical forest areas where tea plantations typically are located.

The intensive use of chemicals in the mono cultural production of tea also raises concerns. Additionally, the tea industry is affected by a number of social issues such as poor working conditions, health and safety issues, as well as gender specific problems.

Tea is grown in monoculture, which reduces biodiversity. In the absence of other plants to maintain the ecological balance, intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers is needed to protect the plants against pest infestation and to enhance productivity. This leaches out the soil.

Use of agrochemicals

Pollution in tea plantations is strongly linked to the ill-treatment of workers. The spraying of pesticides is usually done by untrained casual daily wage workers. They are mostly illiterate adolescents who are unaware of the warnings or the instructions on the containers. Their lack of knowledge leads to improper use of the chemicals.

The compulsory gap of 8 to 10 days between spraying and plucking is designed to protect the workers, but managers do not abide by this. Thus, putting the workers in danger and causing a high degree of toxicity in the soil and water.

The unsafe use of chemicals does not only endanger the workers and the environment, but also leaves traces of harmful pesticides and insecticides in the processed tea. According to a report published several years ago, the European Tea Committee claimed there was a high incidence of pesticides in tea exported by a leading tea producer to overseas markets.

Other environmental problems include the disposal of plastics in waterways, deforestation and, particularly, in Darjeeling, landslides and erosion.

Social issues

Tea production employs around 1.5 million workers in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka alone according to The International Labour Organization. Conditions for workers on plantations differ widely between and within countries. A large proportion of production is done in plantations, where workers live isolated from the outside world and where low wages, sex discrimination, poor working conditions and inadequate provisions (such as deficient toilets) are common.

Human rights

Human rights violations have been reported at plantations in virtually all major tea producing countries, while tea growing itself has a profound effect on the local environment.

Tea is grown in more than 45 countries worldwide and while India and China are the biggest producers, Sri Lanka and Kenya lead the way in exporting tea to meet the global demand. Two main issues are associated with tea production: the vast amount of land required to grow it and the intensive labour needed to harvest it. Human rights violations have been reported at plantations in virtually all major tea producing countries, while the plantations themselves have a profound effect on the local environment.

Labour conditions

Tea production, in particular the labour required for harvesting the leaves by hand, has long been associated with the poor treatment of workers. In a labour-intensive industry such as tea production, reducing the cost of labour will increase profit margins and often leads to the inhumane treatment of workers.

Plantation labourers are poorly paid. In Sri Lanka poverty levels on plantations exceed the national average, with 30 per cent living below the poverty line despite being employed.

In India, where workers are expected to pick more than 20 kilograms per day, wages are as little as $1-1.5 per day. Plantation work does not give labourers sufficient wages to pull themselves out of poverty, providing the multi-billion dollar tea industry with a ready supply of cheap labour.

Housing conditions are often poor and typically consist of barrack-style accommodation, where 6-11 people occupy one room, often without windows. Medical care provided on the estates is basic and there have been repeated cases of managements failing to organise sufficient medical care, or emergency transport to hospital.

Women make up 75-85 per cent of the tea picking workforce and abuses of women's rights are commonplace. In the barrack-style accommodation, women are allowed very little privacy and are at a higher risk of sexual harassment. A survey conducted on a Sri Lankan plantation discovered that this lack of privacy has led women to commit suicide. Alcohol abuse is high among males on plantations and drunken violence against women is common, according to UNICEF.

The poor treatment of workers is not limited to adults. Reports of child labour have been made on tea plantations across the globe. In 2006 more than 40,000 children worked picking tea leaves in Uganda for as little as 30 US cents a day and in 2010, 90 children were found to be working in one Indonesian tea-processing factory. However, the issue of child labour is complicated by poverty-stricken parents who require their children to work to contribute towards the household income.

In recent years labour unions have been established on plantations to campaign for fair pay and working conditions, but industrial action is frequently met with brutal suppression by police and plantation owners. In 2010, on an estate owned by Tetley's parent company, Tata Group, a worker who collapsed while spraying pesticides was reportedly refused medical treatment and later died. Protests in response to the death were quelled by local police, resulting in the deaths of two protesters and a further 15 injured, pressure groups claim.

Land issues

Tea production has a negative impact on the environment. Natural habitats, rich in biodiversity, are converted into vast swathes of tea plant mono cultures.

This habitat loss leads to a reduction in the general number of species and threatens the survival of entire ecosystems.

Large areas of forest have been cleared to make way for tea plantations. In North East India, areas which used to be a combination of forest and grassland and were home to tigers and rhinos, have been converted to tea plantations.

In East Africa, forests are still being cleared to make way for new plantations. Earlier this year, a tract of Ethiopian rainforest was sold to grow tea, despite opposition from Ethiopia's President and environmental authorities.

Converting forests into tea plant monocultures decreases the biodiversity of plant species, meaning many other species' habitats are lost.

Habitat loss associated with tea plantations, has led to the decline of the Lion Tailed Macaque in India and the Horton Plains Slender Loris in Sri Lanka, both of which are on IUCN's Red List of endangered species.

Tea plantations not only result in the direct loss of habitat, but can impact the wider environment. Land clearance alters the natural flow of water and increases soil erosion leading to the loss of wetland habitats and the pollution of rivers and lakes. In the Tanzanian Usumbara mountains, a hotspot of unique species, streams near tea plantations have shown decreased biodiversity.

Grown in monoculture, tea plants provide ideal conditions for a number of pests, resulting in the widespread use of toxic pesticides. Recently, four elephants were found dead in Kaziranga National Park, India, after they wandered into a tea plantation and ate grass which had been sprayed with pesticides. The deaths of cows and vultures in the Assam region has also been blamed on pesticides and has led to renewed calls for its use to be banned.

To meet the increasing demand for tea, more and more land is being deforested and converted into tea plantations. Cases of 'land grabbing' or the acquisition of land by foreign investors has been reported in many countries and several Indian tea companies have purchased in Uganda and Kenya.

These acquisitions can affect local people, who lose rights to the land they depend on and the local environment.

In a recent acquisition of land in Ethiopia the Indian company Verdanta Harvests have been accused of doublespeak, manipulation and lying in order to purchase large areas of rainforest, which is home to the indigenous Mazenger people, and convert it to tea plantations