North set for record tea production

The country's northwestern region, which emerged as a tea producing zone in recent years, is expected to register record production of tea in 2021 thanks to favourable weather and growing interest among locals seeking to profit from rising internal consumption of tea.

Already production of tea has risen 31 per cent year-on-year to 13.5 million kilogrammes (kg) in five northern districts, namely Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat, until November 30 this year from 10.3 million kg in 2020, according to Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) data.

Total production in the north accounted for 15 per cent of the 89.57 million kg produced in the country as of November 30 this year, official data showed.

Annual tea consumption stood at 95 million kg in 2019, double the 46 million kg consumed in 2007, according to the BTB.

As production will continue till the end of this month, tea gardeners and the BTB officials expect that total tea output would exceed 14 million kg in the region this year.

The positive outlook comes at a time when the government is planning to establish a tea auction centre at the border district of Panchagarh in order to ensure that growers and processors get better prices of tea.

The cabinet last month asked the BTB to set up the tea auction centre and the BTB has already held meetings with tea industry stakeholders regarding opening the auction centre in Panchagarh, to be the third in the country. The other two are in Chattogram and Sreemangal of Sylhet.

The BTB officials, tea producers and processors in the north said tea produced in the region were auctioned in Chattogram and Sreemangal at lower prices because of quality deterioration for the transportation over the long distance.

Factories also have to count transport costs.

Another meeting is likely to take place next week at the Divisional Commissioner's office in Rangpur, said Mohammad Shamim Al Mamun, senior scientific officer of the regional office of the BTB in Panchagarh.

"Tea farmers will benefit for establishment of an auction centre in Panchagarh. This will help flourish the tea industry in the northern part and create more jobs," said Amirul Haque Khokon, president of Small Tea Garden Owners' Association in the region.

Ishag Ali Mandal, one of the few growers in Tetulia upazila of Panchagarh, said tea growers got Tk 16-Tk 25 for each kg of green tea leaves. "If the auction centre is set up here, we will get better prices," he said.

Currently tea is grown on 10,170 acres of land in Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Lalmonirhat, Dinajpur and Nilphamari out of about 50,000 acres that is suitable for tea cultivation in the region, according to the BTB official.

Some 2,000 acres of land have come under tea cultivation this year, taking the total tea garden area to more than 12,000 acres in the region.

Cultivation in the northern parts of Bangladesh grew at an average rate of 15 per cent per annum over the past five years. Production has been growing too, according to the BTB.

Apart from 26 large gardens in the region, there are 7,310 small farmers who produce tea on their own.

AS Shah Alam Bhuiyan, owner of Karotoa Tea Garden and Factory, said a tea auction centre in the north would relieve processors from transporting tea to other regions for sale.

The tea gardening began to prosper more than two decades ago following a visit by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was head of the government at that time too, in the region in 1996. She instructed the local administration to go for experimental cultivation.

And cultivation began to expand later gradually amid state patronisation and interest of landowners and farmers, said officials and industry operators.

Today, tea cultivation has created employment opportunities for about 25,000 people, a large number of whom are women, in Panchagarh and Thakurgaon. The north is now the third largest tea growing region.

"Now, small growers who cultivated tea on their own land have become solvent," said Abul Hossain, a tea producer at Pediagach village of Tentulia upazila, Panchagarh.

He said his land was left unutilised before he started tea cultivation.