TURA: Given the high market demand and absence of any pesticide during cultivation, the state government is moving for organic certification for Garo Hills’ most popular brand of tea “Durama”.
“Durama tea is not only tasty but also organic because tea farmers never use pesticides, which is a rare and unique thing. Today 40 percent of the entire tea market in Garo Hills has been captured by Durama tea,” said Commissioner and Secretary P Sampath Kumar during a visit to one of the tea collection centres at Tebronggre this week.
The tea is produced by the West Garo Hills Tea Farmers Federation headquartered at Rongram, 15 km from Tura.
The arrival of tea in the region has also benefitted the eco system substantially as many farmers turned away from the traditional jhumming cultivation and took up tea cultivation more than two decades ago.
According to Kumar, for any organic certification of a product it requires a three-year process and given the rising demand for both Durama tea and Lakadong turmeric the government is moving for their certification.
“Once they get organic certification, Durama tea and Lakadong turmeric farmers will be able to export their produce not just in the country but even in foreign countries for a very profitable price because there is a huge demand for organic produce,” said Sampath and added that the advantage for Garo Hills tea farmers is that a tea factory backed by the state government is already up and running for the past 10 years producing this organic brand.
Most recently, in Ri Bhoi district’s Umsning area, tea growers transformed their entire plantations into organic but are yet to start their own tea processing factory.
Tea production began in the Rongram region as early as the beginning of the 1990s but absence of any government assistance compelled farmers to sell their produce for rock bottom prices to privately run tea factories.
At one point of time, farmers were forced to sell their tea leaves for just Rs 2 a kilogram.
In 2006-07, the district administration took a major initiative and got the farmers to come together and with funding assistance opened the Durama Tea factory at Rongram in 2008.
Since then, there has been no looking back as more farmers in the region have transformed their land into tea plantations raising the economy and their livelihood prospects as well.
Today farmers are getting paid a sum of Rs 16 for a kilogram of freshly plucked tea leaves.
Also, they no longer need to trek miles from their distant fields to the factory to hand over their day’s tea leaves collection since collection centres have been established at several points to facilitate the transfer of the produce.
A mini truck comes at the end of the day to collect the entire consignment from these collection centres easing the burden of the farmers who can now spend more valuable time doing other productive works as well.
