The Impact of Tea Small Holdings on Rural Employment (with reference to Imaduwa Divisional Secretariat in Galle District)

Abstract

Tea is one of main agricultural crop as well as commercial crops which contributes substantial percentage of GDP for agricultural sector. According to the elevation, tea planted areas are categorized into three types as high-growing tea (upcountry tea), mid-grown (mid country tea) tea and low-growing tea (low country tea) in Sri Lanka (y÷kaf.a, 2019). Mainly there are two types of tea sectors in Sri Lanka. There are large-scale tea plantation sector and small tea holding sector. In Sri Lanka, according to the Tea Control Act, a tea smallholder was a farmer who was cultivating tea less than 10 acres (Thushara, 2015). Tea industry opens the door to the lots of employment opportunities in the rural sector. It becomes one of largest employer with workforce over 2.5 million. Out from more than 6.4 million rural workers, about 1.8 million are in farm wage employment. The majority of employment in the tea smallholder sector is informal as they are not registered with the Farm Employees Provident Fund or the Inland Revenue Department. Tea Small Holding related jobs can be mainly classified into four categories. They are OWA, Unpaid family worker, Employee and employer. (Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United & Nations (FAO) Sri Lanka, 2018).