Tea farming expanding due to interest of small-scale growers
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
RANGPUR, Feb 24 (BSS): Tea farming is being expanded fast following more interest of small-scale growers everywhere in the sub-Himalayan Panchagarh district in farming the cash crop in recent years.
Tea farming has been changing the overall socio-economic conditions of common people, including the small and marginal farmers and working women, prompting faster growth of the tea sector in the area.
Further assistance, setting up more tea processing industries, competitive markets at the grassroots for tealeaves and resolving some other problems could accelerate further growth of the sector, officials and experts concerned said.
Side by side with the common people, hundreds of females, who lived in utter miseries due to abject poverty, are now changing their lot and achieving self-reliance by earning wages as plucking workers in the tea gardens.
The growing tea sector has ushered in a new hope for further enhancing the standard of socio-economic life and women empowerment in Panchagarh and adjoining districts in near future, they said.
At present, over 7,000 skilled and unskilled workers, mostly women, have been working in 260 tea gardens, including 18 big estates, 13 medium-sized and 229 small-scale gardens set up on about 2,200 acres of land in Tentulia and its surrounding areas.
Small-scale tea growers are now happy as the tea processing factories of Tentulia Tea Company Ltd (TTCL) and Karotoa Tea Garden in Panchagarh area are now purchasing green tealeaves at Tk 11 per kg.
According to a survey conducted by Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB), there are 16,000 hectares suitable for tea farming in Panchagarh area and only 2,200 acres have so far been brought under tea farming in the area since 2002.
Tea farming has been changing the overall socio-economic conditions of common people, including the small and marginal farmers and working women, prompting faster growth of the tea sector in the area.
Further assistance, setting up more tea processing industries, competitive markets at the grassroots for tealeaves and resolving some other problems could accelerate further growth of the sector, officials and experts concerned said.
Side by side with the common people, hundreds of females, who lived in utter miseries due to abject poverty, are now changing their lot and achieving self-reliance by earning wages as plucking workers in the tea gardens.
The growing tea sector has ushered in a new hope for further enhancing the standard of socio-economic life and women empowerment in Panchagarh and adjoining districts in near future, they said.
At present, over 7,000 skilled and unskilled workers, mostly women, have been working in 260 tea gardens, including 18 big estates, 13 medium-sized and 229 small-scale gardens set up on about 2,200 acres of land in Tentulia and its surrounding areas.
Small-scale tea growers are now happy as the tea processing factories of Tentulia Tea Company Ltd (TTCL) and Karotoa Tea Garden in Panchagarh area are now purchasing green tealeaves at Tk 11 per kg.
According to a survey conducted by Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB), there are 16,000 hectares suitable for tea farming in Panchagarh area and only 2,200 acres have so far been brought under tea farming in the area since 2002.