Kalpetta: With tea prices registering a sudden jump since September this year and the majority of production units fixing prices more than Rs 22 per kg for green leaf for the South Indian tea, the tea farmers of major tea baskets of South India, including Wayanad and adjacent Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu, are in a jubilant mood.

Earlier, due to the price dip of green tea leaves, farmers had been struggling to make ends meet. During the Covid-19 days, the green leaf prices crossed the Rs 20 mark, owing to the shutdown of most of the tea plantations in the tea belts of Assam and the complete ban on importing tea from other countries. Since then the price for green leaf was hovering between Rs 12 to Rs 15 per kg for the last four years which made it tough for the farmers to survive.

The price fixed by the Tea Board of India for the September month green leaf in the Nilgiri-Wayanad region was Rs 23.45, whereas the price of Greenleaf received by farmers in earlier months was less than Rs 15 per kg. The cooperative entity under the Tamil Nadu state government, the Tamil Nadu Small Tea Growers Industrial Cooperative Tea Factories Federation, popularly known as INDCOSERVE, which has 16 tea factories run by small tea growers under it, also has fixed the price for green tea at Rs 22.50 for the month.

The tea farmers of the region were up in arms against the state and central governments, demanding a just price for tea leaves, claiming that the price for the green leaf had been at the lowest for the last two decades while the input costs skyrocketed. “The prices are up now, at a time when the farmers were busy uprooting the tea plants to replace them for coffee and cardamom,” said Joy A O, who had reduced his tea garden from 4 acres to less than 1 acre now.

“I was planning to uproot the remaining bit of the farm when the prices shot up unexpectedly. While travelling through the hinterlands, one could see massive uprooting of tree plants. I hope the jump in prices would force the farmers to postpone their plans to uproot the tea plants, at least for the time being,” said Rajeev M, secretary of Kayyunni Small Tea Growers’ Association.

In 2020-21, during August (Rs 23), September (Rs 27), October (Rs 24), and November (Rs 26), tea farmers received a good price as the Kerala state government directed its agencies to purchase tea dust directly from INDCOSERVE, the Tea Co-operative under the Tamil Nadu government. “Earlier in the 2017-2018 fiscal, the highest price received by the farmers was Rs 15 per kilogram while the lowest price was Rs 9.50,” he said.

The price rise came at a time when the farmers' bodies demanded a support price for tea leaves as multiple reports from various bodies including the Tea Board India and various agencies said that the production cost of the green tea leaf is Rs 24 and above. The heat wave that hit the tea belts last summer, the massive conversion of tea plantations for coffee and cardamom are cited as the key reasons for the total dip in production.

Nilgiri-Wayanad Bought Leaf Factories Association president C M Joseph said that the extreme summer this year, which lasted till mid-May followed by continuous rains, had resulted in a sharp dip in production. “The Indian tea industry has a cumulative loss of more than 85 million kilos this financial year up to September,” he said.

“The dip in production was so sharp that the prices of green leaves jumped up to Rs 45 per kg for the Assam-West Bengal tea belt,” said J John Edoor of Grassroots Tea, an umbrella initiative of Small Tea Producers in Assam.