A joint platform of small tea growers from the Northeast on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce a minimum support price (MSP) or fair and remunerative price (FRP) for green tea leaves produced by them.
In a representation to the Prime Minister, the North East Confederation of Small Tea Growers Association said MSP or a fair price mechanism was essential to “protect small tea growers from market price volatility.” Sources said the growers are seeking an MSP between ₹25 and ₹35 per kilogram, while the average price this year has hovered around ₹20. The Northeast has over 1.25 lakh small tea growers (STGs), of whom more than 1.22 lakh are in Assam.
Assam is the largest contiguous tea-growing region in the world, contributing over 52 per cent of India’s total tea output, including CTC, orthodox, organic and GI-tagged varieties.
The representation stated: “As far as we know, Minimum Support Price (MSP) is applicable to 22 agricultural crops and is a price guarantee set by the Government to protect farmers from price drops in the open market, thereby ensuring a fair price to farmers for their produce.”
It added: “Another successful and time-tested mechanism to ensure fair price to sugarcane farmers is Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP). Tea is half agriculture and half industry. Small tea growers cultivate and harvest tea leaves, which is a form of agriculture. We therefore earnestly request you to introduce MSP or FRP for green tea leaves produced by Small Tea Growers (STGs).”
Six STG associations — two from Assam and one each from Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura — signed the representation. They argued that the current price sharing formula (PSF) or the Tea Board’s declaration of average green leaf price (AGLP) “is not helping growers and is instead creating rift between growers and manufacturers.”