The Center for Sustainability (CFS) attached to Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura in collaboration with Unilever Lipton Ceylon Ltd, aims to conduct a high impact program for uplifting sustainability and productivity levels of tea small holder farmers in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Priyan Perera. Coordinating Director and Senior Lecturer at Department of Forestry and Environmental Science said that, this will be done through establishment of 200 model farmers across the key tea growing regions, and using these as a base to train a total of 40,000 farmers on sustainable, productive tea farming. This is in the background that an average tea small holder will harvest 350kg of green leaf per acre of land (TSHDA stats), which is far below the potential yield if proper, sustainable agriculture practices are followed. The multiplier effect we expect to achieve in sharing best practices through a set of live ‘models’ will help numerous farmers maximize their land holding, increase incomes/crop and help make tea farming more sustainable as a livelihood.
This initiative will deliver benefits far beyond the farm – it is expected to help increase overall tea production, enhance health in the community and protect our soil, biodiversity & water resources.