Middle East War Makes Sri Lanka Tea Bitter
JAKARTA - The Middle East conflict is now felt even in the kitchen of Sri Lanka's tea workers. Jacintha Malar, a tea factory worker, can no longer rely on gas for cooking. He switched to firewood because energy prices were rising.
As reported by Kyodo News, Thursday, May 21, Malar and her husband, a tea picker in the central hills of Sri Lanka, live off the tea industry worth 1.5 billion US dollars. This industry absorbs around 2.4 million workers.
Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on the Middle East market. Almost half of Ceylon Tea's exports, worth around 680 million US dollars per year, are sent to the region.
The impact is most felt on plantation workers, who have lived with low wages and rising living costs since the beginning.
The daily wage of a tea plantation worker ranges from 1,350 to 1,750 rupees, or about 4.30 to 5.50 US dollars. This figure is only slightly above the national daily minimum wage of 1,200 rupees.
More than half of plantation workers live below the World Bank's poverty line for lower middle-income countries, which is 3.65 US dollars per day.
"Workers on plantations face crisis after crisis," said Thangawel Ganeshalingam, coordinator of the Movement for Plantation People's Land Rights, quoted by Kyodo.
According to Thangawel Ganeshalingam, the rising cost of living makes children increasingly often not go to school. Many families also reduce their meal portions. Some workers leave the plantation to find work in the city.
Pressure is also seen from export data. Sri Lanka's tea export revenue fell 17.3 percent year-on-year in March to 114.75 million US dollars, according to the Export Development Board or EDB.
Exports to Iraq, Sri Lanka's largest buyer of tea, fell 38 percent. Shipments to the United Arab Emirates plummeted 93 percent. Iran buys 8 million to 10 million kilograms of Sri Lankan premium tea every year.
Dilmah, a Ceylon Tea brand that is present in 108 countries, was also hit. Around 30 percent of Dilmah's business comes from the Middle East. The company is now facing logistical and shipping disruptions.
Chairman and CEO of Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company PLC, Dilhan Fernando, quoted by Kyodo, said the company had borne the cost increase for a while. However, fuel costs and logistical disruptions continue to drive inflation in many delivery channels.
The pressure on the tea industry comes as Sri Lanka's economy has yet to fully recover. The government has raised fuel prices by 40 percent, restricted supplies, and declared Wednesday a national holiday to save energy.
For Malar, the numbers ultimately come back to the most basic question: how can families survive.
"We don't know if we can handle it. If this war continues, many people will face difficulties," he said.