As India is making use of AI technology to revolutionise tea processing and production, Sri Lanka must work towards incorporating AI into agriculture too by broadening opportunities to test technologies, TeaAI Chief Technology Officer Tharindu Kaluarachchi told The Daily Morning Business recently.
“The Indian Tea Research Association supports companies that are investing in incorporating AI into tea agriculture, by allowing them to test out the technologies. Sri Lanka could improve its process of regulation and openness for technology,” Kaluarachi said.
The Indian government at present has made investments in tea agriculture through initiatives to promote mechanisation, innovation, and providing financial support and incentives for farmers to adopt technologies that enhance processes.
“The Indian government has invested heavily in bringing technology to industries. Now they are signing deals with Google DeepMind, which also opened an office in India. One thing is they retain the talent inside the country, so that the knowledge on agriculture technology is retained,” Kaluarachchi said.
Last year, India surpassed Sri Lanka in tea export volume, exporting 254 million kg compared to Sri Lanka’s 245.7 million kg.
However, Sri Lanka recorded higher export earnings with $ 1,436 million, in comparison to India which earned $ 853 million in export earnings.
The difference in earnings is attributed to Sri Lanka’s own emphasis on value-added and premium quality products, marketed under the branding of Ceylon Tea.
According to Kaluarachchi, within South Asia, India is the furthest along in AI incorporation within agriculture.
“In Malaysia they’ve enough land for agriculture and in-house technology testing. Singapore, being only the size of the Kalutara district, with not enough land, innovates on vertical farming and somehow covers 30% of their country’s food needs.”
Kaluarachchi added that there is an opportunity in automating tea grading at auctions, enabling fast categorisation and the ability for businesses to focus on other aspects of doing business.
“What we want to do with this technology is help with tea grading, at least up to 80-90% accuracy. What we will do is go through the say 12,000 samples available at an auction and automatically categorise the tea appropriate for any required standard. For larger companies this saves time, so that they can use that time to manage customers better.”
He said that Sri Lankan small businesses typically expect the application of technology to be reflected soon afterwards, dissuading them from trying new technologies.
“Their first instinct is to look at ROI from day one. That is likely not going to show with most technology.”