The Tea Exporters Association (TEA) has underscored the necessity of supporting smallholder tea farmers to enhance tea production during a meeting with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on June 26, 2026, at the presidential secretariat. The discussion focused on various challenges facing the export sector.
Mr. Huzefa Akbarally, the Chairman of TEA, noted that while exporters possess the capacity to manage an annual output of 400 million kilograms of tea, actual export levels are constrained by a significant reduction in tea production, which fell from 340 million kilograms in 2013 to 261 million kilograms by 2025. Consequently, the revenue generated from tea exports has stagnated at approximately $1.5 billion each year due to this decline.
Smallholder farmers, numbering over 480,000, are vital to the country’s tea production, contributing to 75% of Sri Lanka’s total tea output. However, following two government-initiated crises—the glyphosate ban and the subsequent ban on agrochemicals—productivity among smallholder farmers has plummeted to around 150 kilograms of green leaf per acre monthly, down from a potential yield of approximately 600 kilograms per acre monthly. This has resulted in an average income of about Rs. 23,000 per month for each farmer. Immediate interventions, such as infilling, are essential to help farmers approach their yield potential and thereby increase their monthly earnings. Although up to 5,000 tea plants can be cultivated per acre, many farmers have fewer than 3,000 plants. To implement infilling, they require financial support in the form of loans or grants from the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), international financial institutions, or local banks. The initial cost for infilling is estimated to be around Rs. 200 per plant. After two years, farmers could potentially earn over Rs. 450 per plant annually for the next 30 years, while the country could gain more than Rs. 850 per plant per year in foreign exchange, based on current market prices.
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The President expressed his support for this initiative, emphasizing the importance of boosting export revenues from tea and other agricultural sectors as a means to facilitate economic recovery and stabilization in the country. The government is dedicated to providing necessary assistance to the industry to improve tea production and export revenues.
Also present at the meeting were Dr. Harshana Suriyapperuma, Secretary to the Treasury, the Chairman of the Export Development Board, and other relevant officials.
