KOZHIKODE: Cash-strapped tea growers in Wayanad and adjacent Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu are in a deep crisis with plantation owners running from pillar to post to sell their estates while small and medium farmers are busy converting tea farms into coffee plantations. The high production cost, lack of labourers and low price for green leaf are the factors that have forced this state of affairs. Recently when big plantation groups made an attempt to lease out the land into small pieces of 20 to 50 acres land, TUs (trade unions) blocked the move citing plantation laws. A top official of a plantation group told DC that they had to spend Rs 25 to produce one kilogram of green leaf which they could procure from small and medium farmers paying between Rs 8 to Rs 15.
Plantation owners say that they cannot run the show as the price for tea dust has been fluctuating for the last several years whereas TU leaders allege that apart from a few plantations, a majority are not paying wages and other benefits to labourers as per plantation rules. Jose Sebastian, CEO, Wayanad Green Tea Producers Company Limited, a farmers’ initiative at Chulliode near Sulthan Bathery told DC that a farmer had to spend up to Rs 10 to produce 1 kg of green leaf while the present price was between Rs 8 to Rs 12. “Leaf plucking being a specialized job, the pluckers charge up to Rs 6 per 1kg leaf while other farm activities like weeding, manuring and spraying fungicides and pesticides costs around Rs 4”, he added.
Mr Sebastian also said that for the last two decades there was no significant increase in the price of green leaf while the production cost went up many fold. Farmers leader Kunhi Haneefa told DC that the sector was in the grip of middlemen and a few factory owners who made a profit while the farmers groped in the dark to eke out a living. “This is happening when the price of tea dust in the open market is between Rs 150 to Rs 400 (for branded)”, he said. The crisis in the sector has put TUs across political hues in a fix as the plantations are ready to lockout the moment TUs declare an agitation. CITU leader P. Gagarin told DC that a majority of labourers were above 45 while youngsters moved out in search of fresh pastures. “The clan of plantation labourers is fast vanishing and the plantations too”, he said, adding that in Sulthan Bathery taluk which is known for plantations, there were less than 100 permanent plantation labourers.
