Panchagarh expected to produce 1.2 million kg tea this year
Courtesy The Financial Express
RANGPUR, May 8, 2011 (BSS): About 1.2 million kgs of tea are expected to be produced in the gardens in Panchagarh this year where small-scale tea farming is on the rise.
Small-scale tea farming got further boost after Panchagarh district administration, Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) and the entrepreneurs (tea companies) jointly raised the procurement price of green leaves to Tk 18.50 per kg from Tk 16 this season.
According to the officials, tea farming and its production has been increasing every year in Panchagarh since April, 2000 following the directives of the then and also the present Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
An official of Panchagarh Regional Office of BTB Amir Hossain said 8,80,000 kgs of tea were produced in 2010 and 58,724 kgs in 2009. This year the production might cross 1.2 million kgs.
Tea farming expanded faster in Panchagarh following various government steps and now, tea is growing on about 2,400 acres land distributed in 261 small gardens, 15 medium size gardens and eight big estates.
Small-scale tea growers are likely to bring another 400 acres of land under plantation this year and the district administration plans to allow private sector cultivation on the khas lands.
Director of Bangladesh Tea Research Institute Mukul Jyoti Dutta said that 3 to 4 year-old plants in Panchagarh are producing the best quality tea. “The average tea yield rate stands between 3,500 kgs and 4,000 kgs per hectare in Panchagarh and between 500 to 2,500 kgs in Sylhet and Chittagong zones when the national average yield rate stands at 1,200 kgs per hectare now,” he said.
Due to increase in tea consumption at home and static annual production of 58 to 60 million kgs of tea, the export of the item is on the decline and country exported 3.15 million kgs of tea in 2009 and less than one million kgs in 2010, he added.
The government has taken steps for increasing tea production by expanding its cultivation to other districts, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Thakurgaon, Dinajpur and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, BTB official said.
BTB Chairman Maj Gen M Mahbubul Hassan during his visit to Panchagarh on May 9 said the government has taken a massive plan to increase annual tea production to 100 million kgs under a 12-year tea development programme.
The Planning Ministry has accepted the Tk 7.61 billion Strategic development Plan for Tea Industries of Bangladesh: Vision 2021 project and the government is actively considering to endorse it, he said.
Experts said here today that if the project is approved by the government, country’s annual tea production will increase by 40 million kgs enabling the government to earn Tk 5 billion revenue per annum recovering total project costs within two years.
Of the total outlay of the project, Tk 1 billion will be spent for the small tea growers of Panchagarh in developing and expanding the tea sector, they said.
A tea planter said if smooth power supply and natural gas were ensured, production cost of tea would fall to Tk 3 from Tk 22 per kg at present.
https://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=135045&date=2011-05-09
