Sri Lanka’s plantation sector has more or less remained the same since its initiation centuries ago, resulting in it not staying abreast of technological advancements in the global plantation industry. This has now led the industry to face challenges due its lack of digitisation, also leaving its technological involvement decades behind its competing nations. In order to combat this issue, the new Chairman of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon (PA) plans to usher in a new digital era for the sector. During the 166th annual general meeting (AGM) of the organisation, held on 17 September at the BMICH, newly elected Chairman Bathiya Bulumulla announced his plans to supplement the industry with technology. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, he stated that Sri Lanka is around 50 years behind its competitors in terms of technology, with countries like Malaysia and Kenya having already adopted technology into their plantation sectors. “If you walk into almost any plantation company in a country like Malaysia, which has estates spanning around 8,000 hectares, you will only find a maximum of two or three people working in the offices, because everything is automated.” Bulumulla explained that this level of automation will help the local industry resolve one of its biggest issues, which is the out-migration of youth from plantations to urban areas like Colombo, creating an acute shortage of workers. He stated that this is why the industry must start mechanising certain aspects of the plantations and bring in technology to where manpower is lacking. “To meet this issue, we must think differently and focus on enhancing how our industry performs and how it is perceived. The introduction of new technology will be essential to this endeavour, enabling us to overcome longstanding barriers in order to achieve maximum productivity from our asset base – land.” His own company, Elpitiya Plantations PLC, faced the same problem a few years ago, which eventually led it to make the decision to mechanise a majority of their operation. Bulumulla explained that this allowed them to keep their agricultural calendars accurate, letting them know when to uproot trees and old bushes as well as when to replant. The company chose to mechanise the harvesting process for its tea plantations, as it is a major part of the operation. However, he stated that local tea estates are at a disadvantage when mechanising their tea plantations due to the hilly terrain most of the estates are located in. “What we are currently using is the single or double human-operated plucking machines to harvest tea because of the slops, but it is difficult to be selective with this type of plucking, unlike hand plucking. But with the decrease in manpower, this is better than no plucking at all.” According to Bulumulla, another reason for the automation of the industry is because data is still being recorded on books and pieces of paper. He explained that while this is entered into computers, it still takes up to seven to eight days to make a monthly report and see whether they have run at a profit or loss. “Today, technology has advanced to the level where massive volumes of data can be rapidly analysed in order to improve the quality and speed of decision-making. In the future, we will not be able to wait till the end of the month to see whether a company or estate is able to run at a profit or not. However, by capturing and analysing vital information on a performance parameters basis, we will be able to identify and respond to issues as they happen. Such capabilities will ultimately make our organisations more agile, resilient, and better able to navigate an often constrained and increasingly competitive global market.” Taking his company as an example again, he stated that for the first time in Sri Lanka, Elpitiya Plantations introduced “paperless technology” into the sector last August and that this technology will not only gather data, but also ensures a smooth workflow. Generally, work is distributed amongst the estate workers every morning by field officers by handing over chits with the workers’ names and which fields they will be working on. Assistant managers then have to go around the fields to ensure the work is being done, and other officers mark people who have completed their task at the end of the day. This has remained unchanged for the past 150 years. However, Bulumulla stated that as of August, the new technology they developed with the help of a small IT firm has given tabs for all the field staffs which help them assign each worker with a respective field by just dragging and dropping their profiles. He explained that assistant managers and field officers can also monitor the workers and the work done, finally uploading the data collected to the system at the end of the day, which helps make the workers’ salaries. “Companies can use these technologies to check their productivity each day, and also do it all the way from Colombo. We have gone up to that level of digitisation, where the information will be derived very fast and the decision-making will also be very fast, unlike earlier where we had to wait for the end of the month for the accountants to tell us whether we are running at a loss or profit.” Their next step in the digitisation journey of the industry is to provide barcodes and QR codes to pluckers so that when they weigh their harvest, they can scan the code and it will automatically be added into the system under their names. He explained that this type of technology was already present in avocado plantations in Kenya over 10 years ago. Speaking on the level of interest of the local industry, Bulumulla stated that a lot of companies have introduced similar technologies to the country, some brought down from countries like India and some developed in Sri Lanka itself. However, he stated that these attempts have been futile, and Elpitiya Plantations’ solution is the first to develop a tailor-made solution for the plantation sector. He stated that the company is more than willing to share everything they learnt and developed with the other companies, but they should be willing to adopt these new technologies. He went on to state that these companies should also be able to invest a certain amount of capital in these technologies and training of the staff. Bulumulla predicted that 50-60% of the local companies should be willing to adopt such technologies and stated that his goal is to get a majority of these companies to make this change by the end of this year. “We are a very technologically rich country, and when it comes to IT, we are almost on a par with countries like India. Therefore, it is a matter of taking the interest, implementing it, and training our staff.”