The Hindu Business Line : Kerala: Small-time tea growers still in the doldrums

THE reported improvement in tea prices of late has not yet percolated down to the small-time tea growers in the State and their plight still continues.

The prices prevalent in the tea growing districts, especially in Idukki, still range between Rs 3 and 5 per kg of green leaf. At this price, employing somebody to pluck the leaf is unviable as labour charges would exceed the sale proceeds.

Therefore, families having one to four acres under tea cultivation pluck the leaves themselves while those who cannot do so are just abandoning the operation. This has left the plants in such plantations in bad shape, growers in Idukki's Peerumedu taluk told Business Line.

A majority of tea plantations are in the corporate sector. Unlike rubber, coffee and cardamom, the number of small-time growers of tea is just around 10,000. This figure is based on the registration with the Tea Board. However, there are a good number of growers who have not registered with the Board, it is pointed out.

Following the closing down of some of the factories in the district, the demand for green leaf has declined. To add to their woes, more and more quality restrictions have been imposed by the factories.

At a time when even major growers have given up applying inputs in their estates for want of funds, how could the small-time growers, who are in greater crisis, be expected to do it, they asked.

It has become difficult for these growers to maintain the plantations in shape and are hence unable to meet the quality requirements. The cost of inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides and labour remain beyond their reach, it is pointed out.

The report of A.A. Ferguson and Co had recommended that in case the intervention of the Board in the area of green leaf pricing was desired, then a green leaf pricing formula like the one adopted in Sri Lanka, which was simple and transparent and that encourages quality, was advisable.

"Such a formula should ideally be retrospective on a monthly basis i.e. the green leaf price for a region during a particular month will be based on using the average auction price of the previous month as a benchmark.

This could be progressively (and eventually) move to a retrospective on weekly basis format once the system stabilises," it said.

Given the precarious situation prevailing in this sector insofar as the small-time growers are concerned, there should have to be some mechanism to protect these unorganised poor farmers, the growers demand.

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