Those Women’s Hands are Now Equipped & Skilled with Technology – By Nisal Rukshan
Sri Lanka as an island nation always maintains its economy with export-based products including textiles, agricultural products gems and more. When it comes to the industry of tea in Ceylon(under British rule) it goes for the history of 200 years. The 1st shipment of Ceylon tea was 10 kilograms in 1873 from the Loolecondera estate (1st tea estate in Sri Lanka) to London. Now the export of Ceylon tea is the 2nd largest industry after the textile industry. According to the Export Development Board data (2023), Sri Lanka earned USS Million 1309.89 in foreign revenue with Ceylon Tea exports. As an average, it is 11.26% of the total merchandise exports in 2023.
Even though Ceylon tea dominates the world market with high-calibre exports, it competes with China, India and Kenya to garb the market. Mid of this massive contribution to keeping the momentum of the Sri Lankan economy, Now industry facing serious challenges like most industries. Especially with the scarcity of labour. This labour factor plays a vital role in every step of the field of tea from ground preparation for sapling planting to delivery of the made tea.
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Regarding plucking, Sri Lankan ladies are capable, committed, effective and efficient in delivering high-quality green leaves. However, the scarcity of plucking labour has recently affected the industry for various socio-economic reasons. Almost all regional plantation companies are seeking different strategies to overcome these issues with the objective of competitive retention.
As one of the Sri Lankan Tea Industry pioneers, the G&G Group of companies, Hatton Plantations recently started a new era for women tea pickers (harvesting assistants). That is extracting technology to enhance expected objectives and outcomes towards the industry, employees and community.
The company outlined a strategy by the introduction of hand-held plucking machines for women. Objectives of this new step were to improve productivity, educate on technology, change traditional mindsets, empowerment of women and finally enhance their economy. It was started as a pilot project in all 13 estates of Hatton Plantations plc and now each has qualified harvesting assistants with new machines. For this introduction of technology, the company invested approximately 80 million rupees.
Now they are equipped with technologically advanced harvesting machines. Those are helping them to forget painful memories of cracked hands and fingers caused by hand-use tea harvesting. Meanwhile, it makes them smile with not only enhanced income generation but also technical skills. With this new empowerment some female machine harvesters to pick 100 Kilograms plus green leaves per day which enhances their daily income by more than double.
This novel concept breaks the traditional mindsets of tea pluckers by converting them to skilled harvesting assistants to avoid discriminative imaginations. The new adaptation was highly streamlined by considering several special factors like the quality of the Ceylon Tea. Even feedback from employees shows positive outcomes with motivation.
Every industry needs to go for best practices without spoiling its quality assured from old ages. Once technology adaptation is a solution to emerging challenges like scarcity of human labour, it must be handled with care. Therefore, this new strategy implemented for the harvesting industry can be a better move towards women’s empowerment and uplift socio-economic structures followed by better industry.
The chairman of the G&G Group of companies Mr Gary Seaton, Mr Menaka Athukorala, Executive Director of the Hatton Plantations PLC and Mr Gowri Shankar, Managing Director and CEO of the G&G Group of companies are the pioneers of the success story of the Hatton Plantations PLC under principles and goals of sustainable agriculture practices.
By Nisal Rukshan, Assistant Manager, Plantations and Leisure – Hatton Plantations PLC
