Exploited tea-pickers of Sri Lanka call on N.Z. for help

Press, 31 August 1978, Page 17

Exploited tea-pickers of Sri Lanka call on N.Z. for help

Two Christchurch men claim that New Zealanders could be enjoying a more tasty cup of tea and at the same time helping the people and the ailing economy of Sri Lanka. They are Eric Livingstone, a company secretary who is a director of Trade Aid, and Kevin O’Connor, the organisation’s manager. Both are just back from a month in Sri Lanka where they and members of tea campaign groups from other countries looked at the industry and its problems. . To focus attention on the need for more equi’

By

KEN COATES

table world trading arrangements, Trade Aid imports goods, including tea, thereby providing markets for developing countries.

Sri Lanka and India, before the second World War, produced 65 per cent of the world’s tea. Both countries have been described as the two gigantic tea gardens established by Britain.

Thousands of men. and women were brought to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to work the tea estates. They were employed in ex* tremes of heat and cold, lived in makeshift dwellings, and thousands died of starvation and disease. These people were Indian Tamils, and their descendants today make up a 10 per cent minority of the Sri Lankan population.

The two Christchurch men found them living in unsanitary, overcrowded, badly-lit, and poorly-main* tained rows of rooms, called “lines.” Unemployment in Sri Lanka runs at one million.

With independence, the British companies decided to move to East Aftica where production is still expanding and tea imports to Britain are growing. But in Sri Lanka production has remained static. Both India and Sri Lanka must inject huge amounts of capital into the tea industry to provide better wages and conditions for workers, and to replant vast areas no longer profitable. Just as New Zealand is dependent on dairy products, meat, and wool, Sri Lanka is

dependent on tea. It brings in 50 per cent of the nation’s overseas exchange. According to the Trade Aid men, against this background Sri Lankan tea exports assume vital importance. They point out that 52 per cent of tea imported by New Zealand is from Sri Lanka, but most of it is of low grade used for blending. In terms of the grade of Sri Lankan tea bought by 31 countries, New Zealand lies twenty-eighth on a gradus ated scale. Handing out aid to the country is of little effec*

tive 'use, Trade Aid argues. Whgt is needed is a fair deal} On commodities exported, such as tea.

“The Sri Lankans have no access to the rich men’s clubs and cannot influence the price of their commodities,” Kevin O’Connor says. “It is important for us to express our solidarity with these developing countries for our future has similar problems, and ours is a Third World situation.” The Trade Aid men say that Sri Lanka, itself receives a small return for the commodity it produces. From Germany, for example, 9 per cent of what is paid for the retail price of tea goes to the producing country. The rest is eaten up by packaging, profits, and other costs. From New' Zealand, 53 per cent of the retail price is returned. “But we say Sri Lanka should be able to export packaged tea to this country, and for this reason Trade Aid applied for a licence to import,” Mr O’Connor says. The organisation handled 10 tonnes of Sri Lankan tea which it sold in brown paper bags. But it would like to see the door opened to tea packaged by hand in Sri Lanka, thereby providing more jobs. In New Zealand, tea sold by established companies is packaged by machine. It is argued that a small amount of pack* aged tea imported from Sri Lanka would represent about 12 minutes running of one packaging machine.

“A lot of filler or poor grade tea is blended into tea sold in New Zealand to increase the quantity in the pack,” Eric Livingstone says. “High grade Sri Lankan tea is used to give it flavour.” He says that this is unfair to the product. “It is like mixing Canterbury lamb in London with meat from another country. The New Zealand housewife should be given a choice to buy from Sri Lanka.” Kevin O’Connor says that the tea trade claims that Sri Lanka would be unable to provide a flavour that would suit the New Zealand palate. But they were assured this was possible because of the variety of teas produced in different areas, and the various grades available.

The pair also believe there is a strong case for importing Sri Lankan tea in a woven reed pack, a natural product. They say that these tea packs outsell ordinary commercial packages by eight to one in Australia where they are marketed by Action for World Development.

Trade Air maintains it has no intention of moving into the tea trade in a big way but merely wants to *‘act as a catalyst.”

In June, it applied for an import licence for 1250 kilogrammes of tea in packaged form, but this was declined. Against this, New Zealand imports 6.75 million kilogrammes of tea in bulk and 5000 kilogrammes of packaged tea.

The Trade Aid men see New Zealanders having an obligation to open the door to more high grade tea from Sri Lanka. And what is more, they argue, that people like the tea, once they get used to it. A drink of the broken orange pekoe brewed in the approved style proves the point. The great advantage they see is of a bigger percentage of the price going to the producer country. Sri Lanka has a lower export duty to compensate for the extra freight on packaged tea. Australia has completely removed the import duty on the product. ' Now that they have visited Sri Lanka' and have studied the industry firsthand, the Trade Aid men will reopen talks with the Ministry of Trade and Industry in a bid to obtain an import licence. As they see it Sri Lanka should have the right to sell in competition with other countries, and a right to develop a market for a quality product.