The Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Association (CISTA) has urged the ministry of commerce to extend small tea growers (STG) the benefits available to small holder farmers growing other crops. It also urged the ministry to help ensure optimal price realisation for STGs through proper implementation of the price-sharing formula.

The lack of access to schemes available to other small farmers, coupled with sub-optimal price realisation, may push STGs to give up on tea cultivation, impacting supply, Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty, President, CISTA, said in a letter to the Commerce Secretary.

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Highlighting the challenges involved, he said STGs have limited bargaining power due to smaller landholdings and output. Moreover, they have limited access to finance needed to set up infrastructure for processing, storage and value addition, among others.

There are nearly 2.4 lakh STGs in India producing over 691 million kg (mkg) of tea from over 2 lakh hectares across Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala; they account for nearly 54 per cent of the country’s tea production.  

“The most serious problem is price distortion by intermediaries. Tea Board of India has mandated that tea factories share the proceeds based on average auction price in the ratio of 65:35, where 65 per cent of proceeds will have to be shared with growers and the balance 35 per cent with factories; however, because of various shortcomings in monitoring and implementation, it results in sub-optimal realisation to small tea growers,” Chakraborty said in the letter.

He called upon the tea board to conduct a study to arrive at an optimal price-sharing ratio. A monitoring system is needed to ensure data sharing by factories for price determination, and the division between factories and growers.

There is a need to strengthen extension services to guide farmers in adopting good agricultural and manufacturing practices.