Tea Board has announced ₹14.62 a kg as the average price which bought leaf factories have to pay to the small growers while purchasing their green leaf in December.

Tea Board’s Executive Director, Dr M Balaji, has said that this price was arrived at as per Section 30A of Tea Marketing Control Order (TMCO) based on the consolidated auction sale average of CTC teas from bought leaf factories during November.

He has instructed all bought leaf factories to adhere to this price while buying green leaf from farmers this month. He has asked all field officials of Tea Board to ensure that no bought leaf tea factory in their jurisdiction paid less than this average price this month.

Massive decline

This price is some 95 paise more than the average price fixed for last month which was the lowest price of any month this calendar. That marks a gain of 6.95 per cent. But compared to December last year, it is as much as ₹8.64 less per kg or a massive decline of 37.15 per cent.

Considering that four kgs of green leaf are generally bought to manufacture one kg of made tea, small growers will now get as much as ₹32 less per kg compared to this time last year for every kg of manufactured tea.

“We have appealed to the Central government to take steps to direct factories to pay reasonable price to tea small growers and also fix a floor price at auction centres as done by government of Kenya. This will help to ensure reasonable price sharing formula between factories and small growers as done in Sri Lanka,” Dr S Ramu, former Member Tea Board and founder President, Small Tea Growers’ Association of Southern India (STASI), told BusinessLine.

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