GUWAHATI
The North Eastern Tea Association (NETA), a body of planters and producers, has opposed a gazette notification making it compulsory for producers to sell 100% of their dust teas through public auction.
The notification from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on February 26 also said at least 50% of other grades of tea – orthodox and the granular CTC (crush, tear, and curl) primarily – should reach the markets through the auction route.
“In a liberalised globalised economy, we feel there is no need for the government to issue a notification to compulsorily sell a certain percentage of tea through public auction. The government should not try to regulate a particular segment of the trade (tea producers) when it has no control over the market forces,” NETA chairman Kamal Jalan said after the association’s 21st biennial general meeting on March 13.
Asserting that any compulsion for the disposal of tea through public auctioning would threaten the survivability of the tea industry, the NETA asked the government to withdraw the Tea (Marketing) Control (Amendment) Order of 2024.
Other tea producers’ groups such as the Tea Association of India had welcomed the government notification, which they said would ensure “fair price discovery” for the beverage industry.
On the concerns over the chemical content in tea, NETA advisor Bidyananda Barkakoty said the producers want every cup of tea to be safe for human consumption by being Food Safety and Standards Authority of India-complaint.
“It would be difficult to achieve 100% compliance instantly without a proper roadmap because of the complexity of the issue and the dependence of several lakhs of people on the industry,” he said, advising the Tea Board of India to draw the action blueprint.
Mission 1 kilo
The NETA advised the Tea Board to carry out a massive awareness campaign among the small tea growers – they account for 48% of the green leaf produced in the country – at the panchayat level to ensure the quality and safety of tea.
Unlike other associations, the NETA said it was not in favour of cutting down production. “We strongly feel that generic promotion of tea in the domestic market would increase the consumption of tea,” the minutes of the meeting said.
“Our mission for per capita consumption of tea in India is 1 kilo. The day we achieve this, a lot of our problems in this industry will be over. The present per capita consumption of tea in India is 840 gm,” the NETA said and requested the Assam government to engage cricketer M.S. Dhoni as the brand ambassador of Assam Tea.
Regenerative practices
The Hindustan Unilever Limited on Friday announced its partnership with the Tea Research Association (TRA), one of the oldest and largest tea research facilities globally based in eastern Assam’s Jorhat, to address the challenges posed by climate change to the tea industry.
The collaboration is expected to improve the resilience and sustainability of the tea industry through the promotion of regenerative agricultural practices.
The project aims to cover 19 tea estates and factories and 19 small tea growers across the major tea-growing regions of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. It is expected to benefit about 15,000 hectares of land under tea.
A TRA spokesperson said the collaboration entails a lifecycle analysis for Indian tea toward devising strategies that can help reduce carbon impact across the value chain.
“Through this study, relevant information and data will be made available for policymakers to support their understanding of the nuances and create enabling policies to support the transition towards a sustainable, low-carbon production system,” he said.
Tea experts said the tea industry has been experiencing the social, environmental, and economic impacts of climate change. While several climate change adaptation measures have been implemented using private and public finance, the mitigation space remains largely untouched, they said.
