Shot in the arm for kithul

The ubiquitous jaggery, produced by hundreds of rural families in Sri Lanka, has finally found its deserving place in the national economy. This week the Cabinet declared kithul as a plantation crop and decided to establish the Kithul Development Board. Jaggery ( hakuru) and treacle ( pani) are age-old by-products of the kithul palm and on this Thursday morning, Kussi Amma Sera – before joining her friends for their under-the-margosa-tree weekly gossip – brought a mug of steaming tea to the office room with a piece of jaggery, saying: “Sir, meh hakuru harima rasai (Sir, this jaggery is very tasty).” I love jaggery and without batting an eyelid, I ate the entire piece (a big one) before even sipping the tea! Yes, it was tasty and the real thing. You also have fake jaggery, a little bit of kithul and lots of sugar.

The conversation under the margosa tree was also about jaggery and treacle. “Meh hakuru honda hakuru (This jaggery is of good quality),” said Serapina, biting on a piece of jaggery, while drinking milk tea, asking: “Kohenda meh hakuru hoya gaththe (From where did you get it)?”

“Towme kade-king. Eh gollo honda hakuru vikunanawa (From a shop in the town. They sell good jaggery),” said Kussi Amma Sera. “Mata hakuru kilo keepayak ganna avashyai ( I need to buy a few kilos of jaggery),” noted Mabel Rasthiyadu, adding: “Aanduwa kithul walata hari thena deepu eka hondai (It’s good that the government has recognized kithul).”

While on the subject of plantation crops, I was intrigued by a recent article titled ‘Moving to the next era of smart plantations’ by Bhathiya Bulumulla, Chairman of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon and Director/ CEO of Elpitiya Plantations PLC. One particular paragraph struck me on what a plantation would look like 20 years from now. It read:

“A typical day on a smart plantation in 2030. At sunrise, a worker prepares himself for another day in the fields. He checks his phone for an update on which estates require work. After checking on which fields are likely to give him the highest yield, he chooses a block that is not too far from home and drives to the estate on his motorbike. As he drives through the gates, his ID-tag registers him as he enters the estate and the field he has been assigned to.

“The block that he picks has been designated as a twoman harvesting job. As he waits a moment to link up with his partner harvester, he waves at a group of his friends who are part of the pruning team that has already finished up tasks in this estate and are moving their pruning machines back into their small truck which has been provided by the RPC (Regional Plantation Company), as they move onto their next job for the day.

“Drones are buzzing around the estates, spraying pesticides and weedicides a few fields down the road, while the field that he is about to enter is being mapped for its soil composition in order for the RPC’s systems to determine what nutrients are specifically required to make his block yield even more harvest.

“After his partner arrives, they collect their two- man shearing machine and start harvesting. Within a few hours, they have hit their norm according to the weight sensors embedded in their collection bags. Everything they collect after this is a bonus. As he is verifying their harvest, he gets a notification telling him that some of the estate’s other crops in a Berry Project, another Horticulture farm, Floriculture farm, etc – are also in need of harvesting. This is a lucrative opportunity, so he eagerly accepts the job and heads over to the greenhouses after his lunch break.

“A few hours of harvesting later, he calls it a day and drives over to the factory to meet with his girlfriend who is almost done with her job of overseeing the estate’s hydro and solar power mix. As they both head into the city to grab a meal and wind down, he gets another notification that his payment for the day’s work has been wired to his account. He sets some aside for his savings towards improving his home and buying a small car, and heads home for a wellearned night’s rest.”

An astounding prediction of what a future plantation would look like and it’s most likely to be the path to progress in plantations which are facing multiple crises of a shortage of labour, demands to increase plantation wages and lower productivity in tea estates. It was also a refreshing look at the future of the plantation worker.

In a recent interview, Plantations Minister Dr. Ramesh

Pathirana said that RPCs contribute to only 24 per cent of tea produced, while the bulk is produced by smallholders. The same applies to rubber and coconut.

In addition to the crisis in tea, the RPCs have also been battered by a recent ban on further planting of oil palms in which the companies have invested millions of rupees.

While I contemplated the crises in the tea sector in which RPCs are promoting an increased productivity- linked wages model to replace the daily wage model, the phone rang.

It was Pedris Appo, short for Appuhamy, a retired agriculture expert who does farming, on the line, and he also happened to discuss tea. “I say… I have been following this debate in the tea plantations on productivity- linked wages versus simply daily wage. I think what the plantation companies are offering is a reasonable structure,” he said.

In fact, the PA chairman alluded to that saying productivity is low on estates and one needs to look at the highly successful tea smallholder model which pays employees a flat rate of Rs. 30 per kg of tea harvested from much smaller fields. In such cases, harvesters consistently secure yields well in excess of 30 kg, translating to a daily earning in excess of Rs. 1,000 right now. Each rupee earned is determined by the amount of tea harvested.

“I think this model is the way forward, but our trade unions are not willing to accept this model because it might reduce their bargaining power,” I told Appo. “That is the problem and some trade unions have become a national curse to the economy. There are, of course, the good ones too,” he said.

As we wound up our conversation, I was distracted by Kussi Amma Sera bringing in a second mug of tea and, you guessed it, another piece of jaggery, saying again: “Harima rasai ( Very tasty noh! Sir)”. I replied in the affirmative, wondering whether kithul would become the next wonder plantation crop – more than 100 years after tea – leading to kithul jaggery and treacle being exported to the rest of the world in large quantities.