Incessant rainfall for last couple of months in Assam has resulted in crop loss for the tea industry in May in the Brahmaputra Valley, one of the two tea producing regions of the state, thus "upsetting" the tea industry to some extent.
"Tea production till April was very good. But suddenly it dipped in May, primarily due to exessive rainfall and inclement weather conditions," said Bidyananda Barkakoty, chairman of
North Eastern Tea Association (NETA). According to Barkakoty, there was almost 20 per cent dip in the production in May this year as compared to previous year. He said that the drastic dip in a single month pulled down the total production figure from January to
May by almost 3 per cent, as compared to the corresponding period of last year.
The incessant rainfall had deprived the crops of sufficient sunlight and a warm temperature during the day time in May, thus creating an unfavourable condition for crops to grow fully. The ideal weather condition for a tea crop is rainfall at night and warm weather condition during the daytime.
The loss of crop in May has to some extent "upset" the tea industry. It is the production of May and June (also called second flush in tea industry jargon) which is considered as the premium and of best quality.
"Loss of crop in May has really upset us as the second flush is the best of quality from the gardens of Assam. We hope at least the production in June picks up," said another tea industry source.
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However, Barkakoty said that the as of now, the "look of the crop" of June appears to be better than that of May, thus injecting some hope in the industry.
Nevertheless, the price of tea at Guwahati auction has been firm since the onset of this season and has been hovering around Rs 110-115 per kg.
Also, there have been reports of inundation of two or three tea gardens in Upper Assam, especially in Dibrugarh district, by flood waters. Dipanjol Deka, secretary of Tea Association of India (TAI) said that though inundation of tea gardens have affected the production of the particular tea gardens, there has been not much impact on the industry. Another source said that swelling rivers in Upper Assam inundated only few tea gardens that were extremely close to the river.
Generally, tea gardens are situated on highlands,thus fooldwaters inundating gardens, especially in Brahmaputra Valley (Upper Assam), is rare, though there have been many instances of inundation of tea gardens in Barak Valley (South Assam) by floodwaters in the recent past.
The year 2009 was one of the best one, in recent memories for the Assam tea industry in terms of both production and price realisation and that story has been continuing for the industry till now. Last year, the average price of Assam tea was up by almost Rs 19, which undoubtedly was above expectation for the industry.
As against the average price of Rs 91.71 per kg of tea in 2008 at Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC), the average was Rs 110.42 in 2009.
Last year, when the overall tea production in India declined by almost 2 per cent, Assam witnessed a bumper crop production as tea production was up by 13 million kg from 487 million kg of 2009.