Scanty rainfall and lack of irrigation deal a blow to small tea growers

Guwahati: Around 1.20 lakh small tea growers in the state cannot pluck green tea leaves this year because of scanty rainfall. The big gardens that have irrigation facilities, on the other hand, are plucking the green leaves of the season. The irony remains that the Irrigation Department has utterly failed to cover the small tea gardens under its purview.

The scanty rainfall this year has left many of the small tea growers explaining their tale of woes to many authorities, but to no avail. An office-bearer of the Small Tea Growers’ Association, Rajen Bora, said, “The scanty rainfall has reduced the April-May plucking of green leaves by small tea growers by around 90 percent. In the absence of rain, tender leaves fail to grow. Even the tea bushes are on the verge of facing death due to a lack of adequate water. This has rendered the workers plucking green leaves jobless, let alone the small growers who have to suffer huge losses.”

Bora said, “The small growers mainly depend on rains as they cannot afford to have their own irrigation facilities. This problem led them to approach the government, seeking irrigation facilities for their gardens. Around three years ago, the authorities concerned received applications for irrigation facilities from the interested small tea growers. The condition reached was such that the growers would bear a portion of the cost of the irrigation facilities and the government would bear the rest. Three years have already elapsed, but the government has not yet come forward with a tangible measure towards that end.”

According to sources, a hectare of standing mature tea plants requires about 10,000 litres of water per day, which is equivalent to 2.5 mm of rainfall. The installation of irrigation facilities is not an easy task for any small tea grower. The ground reality, however, remains that 50 percent of tea produced in the state is by small tea growers who grow tea on around 20 million hectares of land in the state.

The secretary of the Rangapara Small Tea Growers’ Association, Pranay Basumatary, said that the small tea growers had to suffer losses due to scanty rainfall. Many small growers could not pluck tea leaves for the past few days, he said, adding, “On the contrary, we could pluck in April–May last year 70–100 kg of tea leaves on average per day. This time, many of the tea bushes have died. This apart, the lack of rainfall has let pests attack tea leaves.”

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