Tea output down for seventh straight month

Sri Lanka’s tea output fell for a seventh month running in August as a drought, poor application of fertiliser, low market prices and a government ban on pesticides weighed on the production, the state-run Sri Lanka Tea Board said.

The output in August fell by 12.9 percent from a year earlier, the data showed. The last monthly gain was in January. 

“The main reason is the drought in the low-grown areas,” Sri Lanka Tea Board Director General S.A. Siriwardena told Reuters. 

“Poor application of fertilizer and a government ban of pesticides are also affecting production,” he added. 

Tea is Sri Lanka’s top agricultural export commodity and one of the main foreign currency earners for the US $ 82 billion economy.