The Hindu Business Line : Tea Board mulls development agency for small growers

A DELEGATION of the Tea Board, including the small growers and bought leaf factories, is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka soon to study, inter alia, the functioning of the institutions supporting the small growers.

This follows the proposal with the Tea Board to form a Small Growers' Development Agency (SGDA) as a subsidiary unit of the board taking a cue from the success of such bodies in Kenya and Sri Lanka.

The intention is to transfer all matters relating to the small grower development to this agency which should be manned by professionals in marketing, manufacturing, tea tasting and farming.

The proposal was presented by Mr Vikram Kapur, Executive Director of the board, at the recent tea stakeholders' conference held in New Delhi convened by the Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath.

"We fully supported it and suggested that Tea Board would be the right body to run it," said Mr M. Bhojarajan, President of the Nilgiris Small Tea Growers' Association, who has been included in the delegation to Sri Lanka, told Business Line.

Under the proposed model, the small growers have to organise themselves into prodders societies to be serviced by the agency.

The societies would be involved in motivating the growers towards quality production.

The SGDA will bear responsibility for quality, fair price realisation and improved exports. It would also focus on the provisions of ISO and ACCP.

The newly launched Web-based India portal would be used to disseminate market information, research developments and Internet kiosks would be set up at the society level.