Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-04-03

Improvement of the Productivity of the Tea Smallholders

- Around 64% of the Tea Smallholdings accounts for the total extent of tea lands in Sri Lanka and it provides more than 76% of contribution for the total tea production of the country. As a strategy for further improving the Tea Smallholding Sector, the Budget 2018 has allocated Rs.250 million for the improvement of the productivity of the Tea Smallholders. Under this, it has been designed to implement 3 major projects namely, the introduction of modern machines for the effective application of fertilizer for tea cultivation, provision of equipment required for encouraging the adoption of correct agricultural practices and the rehabilitation of the rural access roads to supply the infrastructure facilities for the sale of qualitative green leaves.

As such, the proposal made by Hon. Navin Dissanayake, the Minister of Plantation Industries, to provide fertilizer applicator each to 1,456 Tea Smallholder Development Societies in each tea cultivating areas, to provide equipment such as Spray Machines, Pruning Machines and Forks needed for cultivation and to rehabilitate the rural access roads to facilitate transportation, was approved by the Cabinet.