The Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries Mahinda Amaraweera said that the lack of high quality tea plants has a severe impact on the yield of tea plantations, and that low-quality tea plants have also led to the development of diseases such as nematodes in tea plantations.
The minister gave further information and said that for the safety of the tea industry, the licenses of 20 nurseries that produced substandard tea plants have been cancelled. The minister said this while joining a discussion held yesterday at Gannoruwa Service Training Centre.
The annual requirement of tea plants in this country is nearly 20 million. To meet that need with quality plants, the Department of Agriculture has made arrangements to transfer the responsibility of producing 20 million tea plants to the Plant and Seed Planting Center.
Also, arrangements have been made to start another 200 tea plantation nurseries by subsidizing 200 tea plantation nurseries.