Former TRI director at helm of new tea advisory firm

A new company, CIC Tea Advisory Services (Pvt) Ltd, has been established with the main purpose of providing a better and customer friendly technical service to the tea industry.

Leading the team is Dr M. T. Ziyad Mohamed and Asoka Somaratne, two experts experienced on issues like tea processing and tea cultivation.

Dr Mohamed worked at the Tea Research Institute (TRI) for nearly 24 years and recently as TRI Director to join CIC Agribusinesses. Somaratne worked at the TRI for 25 years and was the Head of Advisory Division at the time of leaving. After leaving TRI, he joined Tea Small Holdings Development Authority (TSHDA) as the Deputy General Manager (Extension), serving the smallholder sector before joining CIC Agribusinesses in 2002.

A company statement said that although the tea industry has done remarkably well over the last century, there are new issues emerging in the sector. Research findings of the TRI of Sri Lanka have addressed many, if not all, issues faced by the industry from time to time. However, there is a huge knowledge gap between the research findings and the adoption of such findings in the tea industry, both in cultivation and processing. It said poor land, labour and factory productivity have resulted in a higher cost of tea production (the highest compared to Sri Lanka’s competitors). Reports from the Tea Commissioners Division say about 40% of the tea produced in the country are of poor quality. “Hence it is extremely important to improve the productivity and quality of the tea produced in our plantations, whether it is the corporate sector or smallholder sector. To cite just one example, with the removal of subsidy for urea fertilizer, most of the tea fields were under-fertilized with a view to curtail cost. Such a move had already resulted in serious consequences and it is our intention to minimize such damages through effective advisory and extension services,” the company said.

CIC Tea maintains two fully equipped analytical laboratories; one at Kurunegala and the other at Pelwehera, having the capacity to analyze soil samples for pH, organic carbon and a range of nutrient elements, and leaf tissues as well as fertilizer samples for nutrients and made tea samples for moisture content, nutrients, heavy metal etc.