Tea output may reach target

The target is 57 million kgs against 56.7 million kgs last year.

Officials involved in tea industry and sources in tea gardens said the average rainfall in September and October was very good for the highly sensitive crops. This has offset the setback cased by the unfavourable weather earlier, they said.

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Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) Director AFM Badrul Alam told The Daily Star yesterday that though the situation was a totally different three months ago, now we are hopeful of achieving the production target this year.

"The floods and unfavourable weather had caused substantial damage to the very sensitive sector, solely dependent on nature's behaviour. But the favourable weather in the last two months did a miracle", Alam said.

Same was the view of a manager of an big tea garden in Sylhet. He said, the weather behaved totally different in the last two months compared to that in June-August.

"Now, tea industry people are confident of a good end of the season", he added,

The floods had caused large-scale damage to the industry this year, which was unprecedented in recent history. Excessive rains for days together and waters rolling down the hills swamped plantations and nurseries in many tea gardens. Many roads, labour colonies, small culverts and bridges were also badly damaged. Besides, there were incidents of landslide in many gardens. This excessive rainfall and insufficient sunshine were harmful for tea plantations.

Weather conditions from May to August is very important for tea plants.

The loss due to infrastructure damage in gardens this year has been estimated at over Tk10 crore, said an official source.

More than 50 tea gardens in Monu-Dholoi, Lashkarpur, and Balisera tea valleys were badly affected by the sudden floods. Several hillocks collapsed.

Tea production was a better last year compared to recent years due to favourable weather and even distribution of rainfall.

Tea is an important cash crop and the largest agro-based industry in the country. There are 160 tea estates producing about 55 million kgs of 'made tea'. Roughly two thirds of this quantity is consumed at home and the rest is exported, earning around Tk 1500 million in foreign exchange annually.

The tea sector accounts for 0.81 per cent of the GDP and employs about 0.15 million people, which is about 3.3 percent of the country's total industrial employment.