Beyond El Niño: Building lasting climate resilience in Sri Lanka's plantations

Climate resilience has become the defining test of this El Niño year for Sri Lanka's plantation sector. The National Disaster Relief Services Centre says over 81,000 people across 25,563 families in seven districts, Ampara, Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa, Badulla, Monaragala, Hambantota and Ratnapura, have been affected by the dry weather linked to the phenomenon. The government has raised daily water allocations from six to 15 litres per person, deployed 324 water bowsers, and set aside Rs. 4.8 billion for relief.

Several of the worst hit districts sit close to plantation country, a reminder that El Niño doesn't stop at the edge of an estate. It touches every elevation, from low grown tea and rubber around Ratnapura and Galle, through the mid grown estates of Kandy, to the high grown gardens of Nuwara Eliya and Badulla. Low grown areas feel it fastest, since prolonged heat and soil moisture loss can hit yields within weeks. High grown tea is more sheltered from dry spells but carries its own slow burning risk from rising night temperatures.

Professor Buddhi Marambe, Senior Professor of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya, draws a distinction often lost in public conversation. "El Niño is not caused by climate change. It is a natural climate variability that has occurred for hundreds of years," he says. "But that doesn't mean resilience building in our agricultural systems isn't helping. It directly assists in mitigating the impacts of extreme events like El Niño." That resilience takes time to build. The Tea Research Institute released Sri Lanka's first drought tolerant tea cultivar only in 2016, after years of work. "It normally takes about 25 years to develop a new tea cultivar," Marambe notes, underlining why the Planters' Association keeps pressing for sustained, long term investment in plantation research rather than short funding cycles.

That long view is already showing up on the ground. At Udapussellawa Plantations PLC, the response to the prevailing drought has been an integrated field level programme rather than a single fix. Mother leaf plucking was made mandatory to protect bushes from moisture stress, foliar bio-fertiliser applications were intensified, and water was diverted to the worst affected fields. Shade cover was strengthened, potassium was applied to help regulate water loss through the stomata, and drains were cut in advance of the dry spell to hold moisture in the root zone. Rooftop solar has also been installed, easing pressure on hydro power so that conserved water can flow downstream for drinking and irrigation.

At Browns Plantations' Maturata region estates, resilience has been built across water, soil and disaster planning together. Water bowsers and sprinkler systems now serve new clearings and nurseries, while thatching in young tea fields conserves soil moisture. Shade lopping and pruning have both been suspended during the dry period to protect plant health, and foliar potassium is being used as an immediate agronomic measure. On the disaster side, vulnerable housing and landslide prone locations are monitored continuously and assessed against the National Building Research Institute (NBRI) recommendations, with relocation planned in consultation with the relevant authorities.

Kelani Valley Plantations PLC has taken the longest horizon, treating climate resilience as something built years ahead of any single crisis. Its Agroforestry Pilot at Halgolla Estate, developed with Sri Lankan and international scientists, layers vegetation to deliver soil conservation, water retention and additional income, and is now being replicated across other estates. Soil and water measures such as soak pits, on site ponds and native tree planting support rainfall infiltration, while the company's Surakimu Ganga programme has planted more than 10,000 native trees in the Kelani River basin, with a survival rate above 99 percent. KVPL also became the world's first plantation company, and Halgolla the world's first tea estate, to achieve regenagri certification, work underpinned by long standing research partnerships with the University of Peradeniya, Wageningen University and IUCN Sri Lanka.

Horana Plantations PLC, part of the Hayleys Plantation Sector, shows how technology is closing the same gap. Weather stations installed with the Arthur C. Clarke Institute feed early alerts on temperature, rainfall and soil moisture, drone mapping flags nutrient and pest problems, and smart fertigation cuts water waste in coffee. Solar installations and mini hydro plants generated 1,243 MWh last year, and the TeaShade Carbon Project is Sri Lanka's first plantation scheme registered under the Verified Carbon Standard.

Taken together, these examples show a sector that is not waiting for policy to catch up before acting. Regional Plantation Companies (RPC’s) have, on their own initiative, built research partnerships, invested in monitoring technology and renewable energy, and embedded climate planning into daily estate management, often years ahead of national frameworks reaching the ground. Professor Marambe's own prescription, continuous capacity building tied to economic reality, is one RPCs are already living out: "People respond when they understand the real economic risk. Every plantation crop is an export earner." The response to El Niño is proof that climate resilience is already a core business strategy, and the strongest case yet for greater government and institutional support to help scale that work further, said Mr. Lalith Obeyesekere, Secretary General of the Planters' Association of Ceylon.