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ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s tea smallholders are discovering fertilizer to be too costly regardless of costs falling from final 12 months’s highs, Sri Lanka Tea Board Chairman Niraj de Mel mentioned.
As the common worth of a bag of fertilizer soared to 40,000 rupees and above by July in 2022, some tea exporters with contacts in Russia and Iran had been capable of supply fertilizer and costs began to fall, he mentioned.
“Smallholders nonetheless discover the bag of fertilizer round 9,000 to 10,000 rupees greater, six occasions of what they’d been used to,” de Mel advised the members of the Planters’ Affiliation of Sri Lanka on the group’s annual assembly.
Small holders had been additionally supplied the curiosity free mortgage to assist apply fertilizer.
However solely round 45 to 50 p.c of smallholders have opted for this mortgage scheme, he mentioned.
“However it isn’t the identical with the smallholder. I’d say solely about 45 to about 50 p.c of the smallholders have taken on the interest-free loans that now we have begun to pay from this 12 months,” he mentioned.
“The result’s we solely have a marginal improve in manufacturing.”
In August Sri Lanka’s excessive and mid-grown tea manufacturing went up, however low growns fell.
Some areas in Sri Lanka’s South additionally confronted dry circumstances in August. (Colombo/Sept25/2023)
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