Sri Lanka Launches Ceylon Tea Village Programme, Eyes 400 Million Kilograms by 2030
Colombo's new cluster-village scheme sets a 2030 output target of 400 million kilograms and US$2.5 billion in exports, roughly $1 billion above the current run rate.
Sri Lanka launched its Ceylon Tea Village programme on July 15 in the Nuwara Eliya highlands, setting a 2030 target of 400 million kilograms of annual output (about 440,000 US tons) and US$2.5 billion in export earnings.
The Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure, which announced the scheme at an inaugural event in Halgolla Hapugastalawa, in the Kotmale area of Nuwara Eliya District, frames it as a medium-term answer to a soft year. This publication reported on June 27 that both output and exports fell short of 2025 levels. The ministry expects the programme to add roughly $1 billion in export earnings on top of the current run rate, according to Daily FT.
The arithmetic rests on the growers who do most of the work. Small farmers account for about 75% of the country's tea production, per Daily FT, and roughly 95% of Ceylon tea is exported. The programme's stated eventual goal is 500 cluster tea villages nationwide. Phase One, covering 144 villages, is scheduled for 2026.
Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure Samantha Vidyarathna said 144 tea villages were scheduled for 2026, in a pre-launch briefing reported on June 24 by Newswire.lk.
The stated objectives: raise green-leaf yields, lift small growers' incomes, develop value-added products, tie cultivation to tourism, promote sustainable farming, build village infrastructure, and set up producer cooperatives. Delivery falls to the ministry alongside the Tea Small Holdings Development Authority, the statutory body long charged with developing the smallholder sector, plus the Tea Research Institute, the Sri Lanka Tea Board, and the National Institute of Plantation Management. Village sites were chosen through technical assessments by the research institute and the smallholdings authority, work that Newswire reported was done without political interference.
What the figures do not yet settle is how a cluster-village model turns policy targets into kilograms in the auction room. That verdict waits on the 2026 harvest.
Sources: Govt to launch Ceylon Tea Village program targeting 400 Mn Kg output and $2.5 b exports by 2030; Sri Lanka launches 'Ceylon Tea Village' programme, eyes 400 million kilograms of tea output; Govt launches Ceylon Tea Village programme to strengthen small tea growers.