Tea Board to conduct program for small tea growers

The Tea Board of India will for the first time conduct a training program for the 15,000-odd small tea growers of the state from September 11.

The program, to be funded by the board, will be conducted with the help of Uttarbanga Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (UBKV) authorities based at Pundibari in Cooch Behar. The short-listed growers are from Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and North Dinajpur districts.

“The board has lived up to our expectations,” said Bijoygopal Chakraborty, the joint secretary of the Jalpaiguri Zilla Kshudra Cha Chashi Samiti. “We hope that the training starting with 21 small growers in the region will be a regular affair aimed at training the growers, most of whom lack proper knowledge to produce quality tealeaves,” he said.

According to Himadri Bhattacharya, the training coordinator and head of the plantation crops and processing department in UBKV, the training will be held at Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Chopra in North Dinajpur. The participants will stay there and attend both the three-hour practical and two-hour theoretical classes everyday, he said.

“The medium of instruction will be Bengali and adequate study material will be supplied to the trainees,” Bhattacharya added.

The list of subjects for the training includes plantation material, soil and climatic factors, nursery maintenance, land preparation, nurturing young tea bushes, shade tree and weed management.

Fertility management, drainage and spraying, irrigation, plucking and leaf handling, pest management, record keeping, entrepreneurship development, schemes of tea board, bank and other enterprises also figure on the syllabus.

Source: The Telegraph