CONTRACT FARMING SYSTEMS IN THE PRIVATIZED LARGE SCALE PLANTATION: A STUDY ON SELECTED TEA ESTATES IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

The large scale tea plantation sector is introducing the Contract Farming System (CFS) as an alternative mechanism to generate additional income to their labours in the privatized large scale tea estates in Sri Lanka. The CFS has been proposed under the Plantation Development Project (PDP), mainly supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the purpose of not only to provide an opportunity to workers to generate additional income from the estate jobs but also increase the productivity in the tea plantations dating back to1993. For last several years it was not considered as one of the sub-activity to be carried out by tea plantations sector. However, the apex body of privatized tea plantation i.e The Planters Association of Ceylon (PAC) is currently thinking about implement the CFS extensively in the tea plantation. The association also prepared a concept paper, titled ‘Productivity based Wage Model & Current State of Regional Planation Companies in 2016. This study is try to highlight some aspects of the outcome of the implementation of CFS and how it has improved the income of labour in the selected tea estates in Sri Lanka.