By: Staff Writer
December 07, Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka’s tea industry, already battling falling export volumes and escalating production costs, has suffered one of its worst setbacks in years following last week’s cyclone, with industry leaders warning that the road to recovery will be long, costly and highly uncertain.
Preliminary assessments show extensive destruction of machinery, access roads, tea-processing facilities and worker housing across multiple tea-growing districts. Officials from the Colombo Tea Traders Association (CTTA) revealed that more than 30 major tea-exporting companies, responsible for roughly Rs. 110 billion in annual export earnings, have experienced some level of operational disruption.
According to CTTA Chairman Lushantha De Silva, these exporters may take two to three weeks to resume partial operations, but the damage to high-value machinery especially tea-bagging and withering equipment could take months to restore.
“Sri Lanka does not have the technology to repair most of these specialised machines. They will have to be sent overseas, and that creates delays and enormous costs,” he said, adding that the government must “step in decisively” to help the industry recover.
The disaster struck at a time when the industry was already under pressure. Latest figures from the Sri Lanka Tea Board show that tea export volumes for January–October 2025 fell to around 205 million kg, down from 212 million kg in the same period last year, while export earnings rose only marginally to US$1.27 billion due to higher global prices rather than improved output.
The cyclone now threatens to widen this gap, with logistics bottlenecks and damaged infrastructure expected to suppress export performance over the next quarter.
Estate-level devastation is still being counted. Early regional reports indicate that over 6,000 hectares of plantations suffered varying levels of soil erosion, landslides, uprooted tea bushes and debris damage. Several elevations remain inaccessible, delaying a full assessment of losses.
Tea estate owner Samantha Dodangoda noted that while the cyclone may not cause an immediate collapse in production, labour shortages are emerging as a serious challenge. “Tea pluckers are scared to return to the slopes after seeing the landslides. Safety concerns will slow the process for days,” she said.
Dodangoda warned that the collapse of rural road networks poses a bigger threat than field damage. With at least 120 rural access roads blocked or destroyed in tea-growing areas, transporting green leaf to factories and finished tea to ports has become extremely difficult. “You can’t keep these roads closed forever, but rebuilding will take time,” she added.
Industry analysts argue that the government must urgently launch a national tea sector disaster-recovery plan, including concessional financing for machinery repairs, a compensation scheme for affected estates, emergency road reconstruction and climate-resilience measures to protect high-risk plantations.
Without swift intervention, Sri Lanka’s already vulnerable tea export sector—one of the country’s top foreign-exchange earners could face a prolonged setback with ripple effects across rural livelihoods and the broader economy.
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