The News – International – Pakistan
COLOMBO: Sri Lankan tea production fell 25.7 per cent in April from a year earlier, the Sri Lanka Tea Board said on Friday, blaming the lingering fallout of a strike last year, drought in low growing areas and high fertiliser prices. Tea output fell to 23.05 million kg, from 31 million kg in April 2006. Output had fallen 16.2 percent in March from the same month a year earlier for the same reasons.
Total tea production from January to April slipped 20 per cent to 86.8 million kg from 108.5 million kg, the tea board said.
A wage strike by the bulk of the island’s 400,000 tea estate workers late last year dented tea output for the first four months, the Tea Board said.
“Once again (the fall) is connected with the labour unrestin the latter part of last year and that resulted in normalagricultural practices not being followed,” said H D Hemarathna, director general of the Sri Lanka Tea Board. “They have not done the pruning and not plucked, so branches grew very fast.”
