The Ran dalu strategy is about motivating the tea out growers of Orange Field tea factory to produce high quality green tea leaf. The Sinhala word ‘Ran dalu’ literary means “Golden Tender Leaves”. The term emphasizes that high quality green tea leaf is as valuable as gold. Green tea leaf is the only raw material that is used to produce tea. The higher the quality of green tea leaf, the higher will be the quality of tea manufactured. Therefore, Orange Field tea factory gives the highest priority to see that green tea leaf of the highest possible quality is used to manufacture its tea. In realizing this objective it is not the leaf standard alone that is looked at, but at building the capacity of it’s out growers, or tea small holders as they are called, to produce the required standard of green tea leaf. This is done through the “Ran dalu” strategy. Through this strategy a selected number of small holders are given the know-how in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) required to maintain a tea cultivation that sustainably produces the high quality green tea leaf in increasing quantities. Orange Field with the collaboration of the Sri Lanka Tea Research Institute trains the small holders in GAPs in relation to tea. Additionally, this knowledge is imparted by the experts who visit their holdings and at monthly review meetings held at the factory. Producing high quality green tea leaf metamorphically equivalent to the value of gold requires extreme dedication to GAPs on the part of the small holders, and this is also very well recognized and compensated by the Ran dalu strategy. The monetary incentive scheme embedded in the Ran dalu strategy pays between a minimum of ten and up to a maximum of twenty rupees above the statutory price for a kilo of the required quality of green tea leaf. This incentive also includes a year-end bonus payment and a long term deposit. This makes Randalu a very unique strategy because no tea factory in Sri Lanka monetary incentives of this magnitude is paid.

 

Ran Dalu Blog

 

http://randalu.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/welcome-to-ran-dalu.html