OOTY: Small tea growers(STG), who constitute the bulk of farming community in Nilgiris, have begun their proposed eight-phase stir by staging a demonstration on Thursday at Yedakad village near here to highlight the plight of the tea farmers and to demand fixing of floor price for green tea leaf and higher tea subsidy. They threaten to intensity their stir during summer season here.
While it is fact that the tea economy built around the STG is not all that healthy now due to fluctuations in the tea prices, the non-payment of arrears for green tea leaf(GTL) which the STG supply to the tea processing factories, adds to their woes. To draw the attention of the Tea Board of India, Central and State governments towards their misery, the Nilgiris Small and Tiny Tea Growers Association(NSTTGA) had decided to organise demonstrations in eight phases in eight villages across the hills wherein the state run Industrial coop tea factories are located.
