Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/556538
54 STiR tea & coffee industry international / Issue 4, 2015 (August/September) Kandy INDIA Bay of Bengal Indian Ocean Gulf of Mannar Nuwara Eliya Uda Pussellawa Uva Ratnapura Ruhuna Dimbula SRI LANKA Photo courtesy Walters Bay Photo courtesy Walters Bay. Two hundred years of intense cultivation has taken a toll on the island. The soil of Sri Lanka's tea lands is becoming impoverished due to limited soil fertility programs and smaller amounts of organic matter making it more dif- ficult for tea slopes to retain moisture — sometimes with tragic consequences. In October 2013, after several days of monsoon rains, a landslide at the tea village of Haldummulla destroyed 150 houses, buried 100 workers, and orphaned 75 children. The Rainforest Alliance is working to improve the country's topsoil by en- couraging practices such as mulching, training workers to leave prunings on the ground, and through the application of agrichemicals with greater care to restore garden health. Recently, Finlays Tea Estates applied these healthy soil practices to sev- eral former government plantations in the east of Sri Lanka. "Some of the moun- tainside were completely bare, there was just rock left, because of intensive use of agrichemicals and fertilizers, scorching, or removing soil cover for the sake of neatness," said Marc Monsarrat, senior manager, tea program, Rainforest Alliance. Monsarrat said that it is fairly common to find high soil erosion, big varia- tions in temperature, and little rainfall. By returning the soil to health and plant- ing indigenous trees the micro climate improves. Sri Lanka is subject to cli- mate change or increasingly strange climatic patterns, so one of the things the Rainforest Alliance is trying to integrate a natural resource management plans around better forestry practices, planting more trees, and encouraging more agroforestry practices within the tea landscape, he said. By applying healthy soil practices, Finlay's was able to restore tea produc- ing areas from a rocky desert into a productive landscape, benefitting the local community by providing jobs and a healthy environment. The Rainforest Alliance recently launched the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to address both land degradation and deforestation in tea landscapes. "Essentially it's to try to tackle the causes of soil erosion, either due to lack of ground cover or too many herbicides, where the soil is bare and gets washed away during high rains," said Monsarrat. The Rainforest Alliance began their sustainability program in Sri Lanka in 2009 and has since issued 14 certifications for 92 estates. The Alliance intends to extend their reach from 10% to more than 50% of the tea growers during the next few years, with plans to include many smallholders. The Role of the Rainforest Alliance Sri Lanka's seven tea growing regions range in altitude from 2,000 to 6,600 feet (600 to 2,000 meters). The high grown tea region includes Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uva, and Uda Pussallawa. The mid country includes the origi- nal tea growing area of Kandy while Ruhuna and Sam- baragamuwa comprise the low country. Each region of- fers a distinct taste to the discerning tea consumer. Walters Bay tea nursery. Although camellia sinensis plant is not native to Sri Lan- ka, it was destined to thrive there. Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, was originally a coffee growing region. In 1867 the agriculture landscape was about to changed dramati- cally. Scotsman James Taylor, who learned tea growing in India, developed 19 acres of land at the Loolecondera Estate in Kandy into the first Ceylon Tea Plantation. Two years later, in 1869, coffee blight attacked the coffee farms in Sri Lanka. Quaintly termed "Devastat- ing Emily" the disease changed the landscape of agri- culture in Sri Lanka, of the 1,700 coffee farms only 400 remained and by 1900 coffee was grown on only 12,000 acres, down from a high of 250,000 acres. Farmers either abandoned their land or converted their farm to the new future export: tea. Taylor quickly saw the potential for Ceylon tea and in 1872 expanded the business to include a fully equipped tea factory with a rolling machine that he invented. Taylor dedicated his life to Ceylon tea, leaving his estate only once, to research the tea growing practices in Darjeeling. The Loolecondera Estate today is managed by the Janatha Estate Development Board where a small patch of Taylor's tea is still being plucked. Sri Lankan Tea: Orthodox Tea Committed to Sustainability