Farmers set up own factory to tackle price woes

KOZHIKODE: The organic green tea factory set up by a group of small scale tea farmers, as a survival strategy to counter the ongoing price crash of raw green tea leaves, at

Karadippara

in

Wayanad

would be inaugurated on Thursday.

The 147 farmers who are shareholders of the

Wayanad Green Tea Producer Company Ltd

have become proud owners of the mini tea factory set up at a cost of Rs 77 lakh. The factory has been set up utilizing a Nabard loan of Rs 45.8 lakh.

The farmers hope to tap the growing demand for green tea in the domestic and international market. The first of its kind initiative has seen the small scale tea growers from two societies join hands to form the maiden farmer producer company in the sector in the state.

The factory has a capacity to process 2,400kg of raw green leaves per day. The raw tea leaves procured from the estates of members will be cleaned and crushed and hot processed in rollers to produce organic green tea.

“We decided to set up the factory as the fall in the price of raw tea leaves was made farming unviable for small scale tea growers. We hope to enter the retail sector with our own brand of organic tea and would also make bulk supply to blending companies,” said

Wayanad Green Tea Producers Company Ltd

CEO Jose Sebastian.

Sebastian said that the producer company would also make tie-ups with tourism industry stakeholders for supply of organic tea as souvenirs to tourists.

He said that as many as 45 farmers have completed two years of the three-year process for organic certification.

“The current market price of Rs 11.50 per kg of raw leaf is not enough to cover the input costs as the plucking cost alone would work out to Rs 10 per kg. Many farmers have abandoned their small tea gardens. We hope that the initiative by the producer company to produce and market organic green tea would help us give at least double the current market price to farmers,” said

K C Krishnadas

, secretary of Wayanad Small-Scale Tea Growers Association and director of the producer company.

He said that majority of the tea factories in the district are run by companies which have large plantations and they refuse to accept raw leaves from small scale farmers during the surplus season.

“Most of the small-scale farmers are forced to sell green leaves to agents from Tamil Nadu at a low price despite the quality of leaves produced by them being high because their trees are usually younger,” he said.

Saji Kumar N S, AGM of Nabard in Wayanad said that the initiative would help the farmers achieve self-reliance through value addition and withstand price fluctuations in the market.