Does Fair Trade in Sri Lanka Need Cooperatives? Do Cooperatives in Sri Lanka Need Fair Trade?

Kristýna Havlová

Bakalářská práce

Abstract:

Tea cultivation in Sri Lanka has a great history from first colonial plantations back in 19th century up to now. The composition of tea industry changed a lot, over 75 % of tea cultivators nowadays in Sri Lanka are smallholders, whereas large plantations cover the rest 25 %. Even though Ceylon tea has been one of the most consumed tea worldwide, tea farmers are still being marginalized and balance on the edge of poverty. Main focus of this thesis was to evaluate farmers empowerment and poverty alleviation through Fairtrade ethical certification. Tea farms can be certified either as a farmer’s cooperative or plantation. Author evaluated all possible benefits and drawbacks of each system and found that Sri Lankan tea sector should mainly focus on spreading awareness about cooperative agriculture to form more tea farmer’s association. Then the Fairtrade should focus on the cooperatives rather than plantations, because of the vulnerability and marginalization of small farmers in the tea sector.

Keywords

Ethical Certification, Tea, Cooperative, Smallholder, Empowerment, Sri Lanka, Plantation, Fairtrade

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 15. 4. 2022

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedoucí: Ing. Jiří Hejkrlík, Ph.D.

Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze

Fakulta tropického zemědělství

Bakalářský studijní program / obor:
Tropické zemědělství / International Cooperation in Agriculture and Rural Development