Tea farmers of the east, who have become financially secure after producing tea commercially, are now facing a shortage of labourers.
Farmers in Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Terhathum and other districts said that there was a problem in maintaining the quality of tea in lack of workers to pick tea leaves.
Although it is possible to pick tea planted in a few ropanis of land by hand, farmers said that they are forced to use a machine to pick tea planted in areas bigger than 10 ropanis of land.
“There are no workers to work in the tea gardens. All leaves cannot be picked by the family members alone. So, using machine to pick tea is now compulsion,” farmers said. “The price of hand-picked tea and machine-picked tea also varies.”
The tea that is picked every week by hand consists of only two leaves and a bud, but the machine plucks up to four or five leaves.
The industries pay lower prices to the machine-plucked tea saying that the quality will not be maintained in such tea leaves.
Gopal Kattel, manager of Krishna Gopal Tea Industry in Suryodaya Municipality Ilam, said that there is a big difference between the qualities of green leaves picked by hand and the machine.
“Now, the price of hand-picked green leaves consisting of two leaves and a bud is Rs. 57 per kg in my industry. But I do not accept the leaves picked by the machines because of their poor quality,” Kattel said.
Kattel, who is also the secretary of Suryadaya Tea Producers Association, said that none of the 62 industries affiliated to the association had fixed the same price of tea because of quality of leaves they receive.
Depending on the quality of the tea, some industries are paying up to Rs. 120 per kg, he said.
Similarly, Suryodaya Tea Industry pays Rs. 100 per kg and Laxmi Tea Industry in Suryodaya Municipality gives Rs. 120 per kg to the farmers.
However, it is said that some industries have started paying only Rs. 15 to Rs. 30 per kg because of poor quality of leaves plucked by machines.
Suryodaya Municipality had set the minimum price of green leaves at Rs. 40 per kg three years ago and it implemented it.
At that time, all the industrialists, farmers and municipalities had agreed to implement the Quality Tea Production Standards Implementation Procedure 2075.
However, the price of green leaf has come down to Rs. 15 to 30 per kg as no one is working as per the procedure.
In the last week, the industries had started giving Rs. 30 per kg to the farmers if they have good leaves and Rs. 15 per kg for low-quality leaves.
In the procedure implemented by the municipality, there should be 40 per cent bud and its minimum price is Rs. 40 per kg.
Secretary of the Sunrise Tea Producers’ Association, Kattel, said that they are forced to reduce the price of the leaves as 40 per cent buds are not available and the quality is poor.
“If everyone works according to the procedure, it is in the interest of all the farmers and industrialists. But, the problem has come after everyone started to cheat each other,” said Kattel.
Meanwhile, Mayor of Suryodaya Municipality Rana Bahadur Rai said that both quality and price of tea can be maintained only when farmers and industrialists show sincerity.
“Let’s all be honest and follow the criteria. Only the farmers and industrialists can benefit from it,” said Rai. “Now, I believe that this committee will be able to solve the problem by looking at the previous working procedure and understanding the problems between the farmers and the industrialists.”
Source : TRN,
