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The development of tea estates in Bangladesh
started in 1860 and Finlays first became involved a
decade later. It has 6,500 hectares under tea, and
about 2,000 unsuitable for it. Ten years ago, it
started to plant this area with rubber. The
planting will be completed within two years.
Finlays,
which produces ten million kilogrammes of tea a
year, employs over 15,000 people, many of whom have
inherited jobs from parents and grandparents. They
receive free housing and medical help: the company
has one 50-bed hospital, five smaller ones and 16
dispensaries, all with suitably qualified staff.
Tubewells supply clean water for homes.
During the summer the temperatures in Bangladesh
are uncomfortably hot and the surface temperature
of leaves can rise to a level where photosynthesis
stops. It has therefore always been the practice to
plant shade trees within the fields of tea. Once
planted these were usually left to their own
devices: they decayed naturally; and only then were
replaced.
During the 1980’s a determined effort was made
on the Finlay estate to improve the stands of shade
trees within the tea fields and to plant other
trees for timber, fruit and ornamental purposes, on
any other spare land. Many of the roads are now
attractive, well shaded avenues.
Finlays was aware that the soils were very low
in organic matter and decided to grow as much green
material within the tea fields as possible. It
discovered that the existing shade trees, produce
seedling trees each spring, and decided to maintain
them at a much greater density than was recommended
in the books on best practice, the idea being to
lop these trees very frequently and leave the
loppings on the ground to lend fertility to the
soil. As the trees grew bigger, they would be
thinned out and the workers would be able to use
the immature wood for fuel.
The multitude of fresh young trees made Finlays
ask if there was commercial value in those that
were old and over mature. Its homework showed that
much timber was imported and, with rising demand
within the country, home grown timber of good
quality was assured of a decent market. But how was
felling and particularly extraction to be carried
out? Tea is traditionally planted in rows about
four feet apart. Its branches join together to form
a continuous mass through which the pluckers move
with some difficulty. Finlays felled the first
trees using a pile of old tractor rear tyres as a
cushion and engaged an elephant contractor to
extract the timber. The elephants found it slow and
cumbersome to get along the rows of tea and
impossible to cross many drainage ditches.
Something else was needed.
Finlays chairman, Richard Muir, who had been
masterminding the progress in timber, has his own
forestry activities in Scotland, and decided that
what was needed was some skylining or overhead
winching equipment. Refurbished second hand
equipment was purchased from the Forestry
Commission and John Corrieri, a freelance Scottish
forestry contractor, went out to teach the
Bangladeshis how to use it. It has been a
tremendous success.
Once able to extract the old trees, Finlays
decided that the sawmill, which was extremely
basic, needed to be improved and expanded. A Stenna
automated sawbench with a 5 inch bandsaw, was
purchased second hand from Scotland.
For the government’s programme for getting
electricity into rural areas, large quantities of
cross arms (from which the electric wires are hung)
and anchor logs (which are used to stay the
uprights) were being imported. Finlays knew that
these had been kiln dried and pressure treated and
realised that the quality of its products had to
compete with the imports. Kurshid Chowdhury, the
tea estates engineer, put together the pressure
treatment vessel and pumps from bits and pieces
acquired from scrapped ships. The kilns were built
with local materials.
Thus equipped, Finlays has won major contracts
with the Rural Electrification Board and has sold
to other customers also.
Everyone that has been involved in this project
is delighted at winning the Rio Tinto award.
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