Middle-men weed out from the small tea sector

The creation of several self-help groups comprising of numerous small and marginal tea growers and tea leaf factories has ushered a silent revolution in the region. “The movement is helping weed out middle-men from the small tea sector,” small tea growers claim.

This is where tea has won over jute - the other important cash crop of North Bengal. For lack of marketing scope, the middlemen lap up the cream as far as jute is concerned. As a result, despite the global demand for jute, its cultivation is on the wane. The idea to bring in the small tea growers with the tea leaf factories was provided by Mr Sabyasachi Sen who was entrusted by the state government with the responsibility to review the tea industry’s condition in 2003.

Following the recommendation, the Tea Board with cooperation from the United Forum of Small Tea Growers’ Association created several self-help groups and brought them together with the tea leaf factories, which are tea-manufacturing units without plantations. The exercise is bearing fruit now, the beneficiaries claim.

According to the UFSTGA secretary Mr Bijoygopal Chakrabarty, self-help groups such as the Panbari Small Tea Growers’ Society with 183 small growers and the Jai Jalpesh Small Tea Growers’ Society with 107 members have benefited much out of this system. “Earlier, these small growers were forced to depend on middlemen for the sale of their produce and the middlemen used to take a big commission for arranging the sale of green leaves produced by these small growers. Now, after tagging these self-help groups with two BLFs nearby, the small growers can make their own sales and name their own prices. This has allowed them to reap the profits of their toil,” Mr Chakrabarty said.

“Similarly, self-help groups created out of the Premchandgach Small Tea Growers’ Society and Bidhannagar Saptiguri STGS of North Dinajpur are collectively selling their produce to an adjacent BLF leaving out middlemen. The small tea growers are fetching proper price at last,” he added. According to him, efforts are on to create more such self-help growers and bring them together with the BLFs so that the small growers can go for collective bargaining.

Source > The Statesman