Experts support minimum floor price call for CTC tea
Times of India | 23 August 2024
Kolkata: Former chairman of Indian Tea Association (ITA) and chairman of Dhunseri group, C K Dhanuka, has sought a floor price for CTC tea based on cost of production. Dhanuka said this was necessary for the industry’s survival.
The current ITA chairman, Hemant Bangur, and former Tea Board chairman Basudeb Banerjee supported the call. Dhanuka said minimum floor price was the only way to make tea plantations sustainable and claimed that the proposal had the support from small tea growers as well.
Bijoygopal Chakraborty, president of Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers' Associations, said small tea growers faced the maximum risk as the price of tea was not even covering the cost most of the time. “There should be a minimum floor price for green leaf and it should relate to quality,” he said.
Small tea growers contribute 52% of the country’s total tea production with 702 million kg of tea while large tea gardens contribute 48%. Dhanuka pointed out that from 2013-14 to 2022-23 among agricultural produces, price of tea appreciated the least. For paddy, wheat it was over 50% but for tea it was 33.8%.