Glyphosate ban on tea likely to be relaxed

By Zohara Ghaffoor

As a sequel to earnest requests from the tea sector, the Glyphosate ban is expected to be relaxed. The National Economic Council meeting held on Monday this week had discussed the lifting of the prevailing Glyphosate ban exclusively on tea production on the request of tea planters to the plantation Ministry, industry sources said.

The Planters’ Association of Sri Lanka, Chairman, Sunil Poholiyadde said last year that tea production had dropped by a substantial 20% due to the Government’s inability to propose an alternative weedicide for tea production. He said planters were unable to control weeds during the monsoon rains and as a result, fertilizer application had to be restricted.

On the same note Sri Lanka Tea Board, Chairman, Rohan Pethiyagoda pointed out that there was no rational explanation or responsible party behind the ban on Glyphosate in 2015. He noted that as a consequence many plantation owners had begun using alternatives which were not authorized in our export market. “These unauthorized substances have been found in our tea exports to Germany and Japan. Sooner or later, our tea export partners would impose restrictions on Sri Lankan tea exports”, he said.

According to the Planters Association of Ceylon (PA) an estimated loss of Rs 15 billion was experienced in 2016, due to the overgrown weeds.

In November 2016, the Cabinet appointed a committee to review the import ban on the weedicide and has submitted its recommendations to Plantation Minister, Navin Dissanayake.

The Cabinet-appointed committee has recommended that the plantations industry should be allowed to import the weed killer under carefully controlled and supervised conditions, according to reports.

In 2015, President Maithripala Sirisena banned the import and release of the agrochemical Glyphosate with immediate effect. Following the ban, the Department of Agriculture in Sri Lanka on the directive of Agriculture Minister Duminda Dissanayake took steps to ensure that the ban of Glyphosate was strictly implemented throughout the country. According to the Government, the use of Glyphosate is believed to be the main cause for chronic kidney disease (CKD) that is widespread in the North Central Province in the country.