The Planters' Association of Ceylon News
Sri Lanka's plantation sector is entering a new phase of transformation, as technology and innovation reshape how estates operate, manage resources and sustain productivity. Across the country's tea estates and other plantations, machines are increasingly complementing skilled workers in tasks once done almost entirely by hand, while software and data bring new precision to decisions traditionally guided by experience.
Automated harvesters, pruning machines and drones are being deployed alongside GIS mapping, digital weighing systems and enterprise software.
This year, Sri Lanka marks 150 years since rubber was first planted on its soil, a milestone that traces back to 1876, when a shipment of young Hevea brasiliensis seedlings arrived at the Henarathgoda Botanical Gardens in Gampaha. Grown from seeds smuggled out of the Amazon by British botanist Henry Wickham and germinated at Kew Gardens in London, these saplings had travelled further than any crop had before them.
In his memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew described Ceylon as Britain’s model Commonwealth country, and took note of the significant lead that then Ceylon had in terms of its resources, infrastructure and institutions when compared to the Singapore he had inherited, or to his immediate neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Where Singapore compensated for a lack of natural resources with a strategic expansion of its services sector, Indonesia and Malaysia aggressively leveraged natural resources to fuel their development.
Climate resilience has become the defining test of this El Niño year for Sri Lanka's plantation sector. The National Disaster Relief Services Centre says over 81,000 people across 25,563 families in seven districts, Ampara, Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa, Badulla, Monaragala, Hambantota and Ratnapura, have been affected by the dry weather linked to the phenomenon. The government has raised daily water allocations from six to 15 litres per person, deployed 324 water bowsers, and set aside Rs.
Malwatte Valley Plantations PLC Director / CEO, Shanaka Samaradiwakara was appointed as Chairman of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon (PAC), while Kahawatte Plantations PLC Director / CEO Binesh Pananwala, was appointed as Deputy Chairman at the Association’s 172nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 19 September at the Cinnamon Grand.
The event was graced by Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor, Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe and Sri Lanka Tea Board Chairman, Raj Obeyesekere as Chief Guest and Guest of Honour respectively.
Many generations ago, an estate child's first years began in a cloth hammock strung up near the rows of tea bushes, so a mother could keep working within earshot of her infant. Later a corner in a line room was converted to establish Pulle Madu, where infants and toddlers were sheltered to ensure that plucking by their mothers was not disrupted.
Nestled in Sri Lanka's renowned Dimbula tea-planting district, at elevations ranging from 4,500 to 5,000 feet, Stonycliff Estate, a flagship property of Kotagala Plantations PLC and the Colombo Fort land and Building (CFLB ) Group, stands as an enduring link to the island's unbroken legacy of producing the highest-quality black tea in the world.
The Dimbula district was one of the earliest areas in Sri Lanka to be planted with tea.
Since inception the plantation industry has served as a central pillar of the Sri Lankan economy. Tea in particular has been the lynchpin of the industry. Especially for globally renowned Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) like Malwatte Valley Plantations PLC, whose teas are possessed of a globally unique terroir that emerges from the soil, elevation and dry winds that move through the valley.
Their teas have a distinctively mellow, smooth, and highly aromatic flavor profile that global connoisseurs aggressively seek out.
Perched beside the Nanu Oya railway station, built in 1885 to carry Dimbula's tea down to Colombo, Somerset remains one of the most accessible, and most storied, high-grown estates in the region. Its heritage rests on three threads: machinery and families that have outlived generations of planters, a steady embrace of new technology, and a standard of quality that has never wavered. Somerset is not a relic, but a working estate, still carrying forward a story that began nearly a century and a half ago.