Tea plantations and small-scale tea growers are in a crisis following the closure of factories and the curbs on engaging labourers after the lockdown to contain COVID-19.
“If tea leaves are not plucked on time, the plant has to be pruned to make it yield again. And the lockdown has come when tea plantations are already in a crisis. This is a testing time for the sector,” says the manager of a tea estate at Vandiperiyar.
“Unlike other crops, tea leaves have to be plucked when two leaves and the bud are ready. If not done, additional labour and time are lost as the plant has to be pruned,” he says.
He says works were stopped when the lockdown was announced last week and most workers, even those operating leaf-plucking machines, had left for their native places. The shortage of labourers and trained hands to pluck leaves had led to mechanisation and leaves are now plucked mostly by means of machines.
The closed tea factories and stoppage of production would deal a long-term blow to the crisis-ridden plantation sector.
Hundreds of small-scale tea growers, especially in Peerumade, Idukki, Devikulam and Udumbanchola taluks, are abandoning the plucked leaves in the absence of buyers.
“A double whammy, this has increased the financial burden on us as tea leaves have to be plucked and abandoned as there is no market,” says Sebastian Joseph, a small-scale tea grower at Calvery Mount.
Better prices
He says the prices of tea are better these days and there has been good yield after the summer rain. The leaves fetched ₹18 a kg before the factories were closed following the lockdown.
“Though it is said that the farm sector has been given exemption from the lockdown, tea factories are remaining closed and there are no takers for green leaves,” says Muraleedharan, a farmer in Peerumade.
“Leaves are ready for harvest every two weeks and will overgrow if not plucked. Though without a reward, farmers have to pluck and abandon them,” he says.
