Planters adopt new mantra - Expert aid sought to ensure tea quality

Guwahati, April 16: Local planters of Assam are seeking expert advice as part of a new strategy to produce quality tea and meet the requirements of the international market.In their bid to rub shoulders with global competitors, the planters have adopted a few new steps like having regular interactions with experts, exchanging views, besides seeking help from colleagues, among others.The move also comes in the wake of Dispur’s decision in December last year to de-register tea factories that failed to produce quality tea from this year.The industry department, through a communiqué last year, had conveyed that tea factories that did not perform well for more than eight months were likely to face de-registration. Industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi had said that the performance of a factory would be assessed on the basis of the price the tea fetched at the auctions.“We have to produce quality tea to keep the glory of Assam tea intact. And for that we need to get together and seek help from experts, otherwise it would be very difficult to survive in the international market,” Abhijit Sharma, chairman of Assam Tea Planters’ Association (ATPA), the apex body of indigenous planters of the state, told The Telegraph today.The association has nearly 180 member gardens that produce about 50m kg of tea annually. With Assam tea, having a good demand across the globe for its strong liquor, the planters were sitting pretty. However, with countries like Sri Lanka and Kenya coming up in a big way in tea production, the demand for Assam tea dwindled.This, according to experts, was because of the fact that the state’s planters concentrated more on quantity than on quality of tea .“Planters cannot afford producing medium category tea at this crucial juncture,” Sharma said.The association, for the first time, is organising a seminar on April 30 in Jorhat, where experts from Indian Institute of Plantation Management, will interact with the planters and provide help to produce quality tea.“We will continue to hold such interactions at regular intervals,” the chairman said.Sharma said that that these steps were necessary at this hour as Assam tea had fetched good prices in the last couple of years after over a decade-long crisis.“We cannot afford to commit past mistakes by compromising on quality,” he said.Sharma said the member gardens were being requested to seriously consider stopping manufacture of tea from the first week of December to March as tea produced from leaves plucked during the winter season lacked quality.“We are also advising our member gardens to go for artificial irrigation since we can no longer depend on rain during the peak production season,” he said.The chairman said that a few ATPA member gardens had been doing well of late.Halmari, Deha, Madhupur, Banamali, Oating, Dulojan, Muktabari and Lohpohia are a few ATPA gardens, which have fetched good prices at the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre in the last couple of years.“A few of our gardens had also topped the price list at the GTAC last year,” he said.

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