Tea Board Urges: Shift from Bulk to Branded Packaging

Context:

The Tea Board, a statutory body under the Union Ministry of Commerce, believes that producers need to reimagine exports and move from bulk to the branded packaged format.

Creation of Nodal Agency: A separate nodal agency is engaged specially for tea promotion.
Schemes: Incentivising value-added exports with schemes such as cash compensatory support.
Tapping Startups: Startups, which are selling in value-added format, could be the front-end for established players.

Tea Cultivation In India:

Tea Cultivation is an example of plantation agriculture. It is also an important beverage crop introduced in India initially by the British.
Climatic Conditions:
- The tea plant grows well in tropical and sub-tropical climates endowed with deep and fertile well-drained soil, rich in humus and organic matter.
- Tea bushes require a warm and moist frost-free climate all through the year.
- Frequent showers evenly distributed over the year ensure continuous growth of tender leaves.
Labour Intensive Industry: Tea is a labor intensive industry. It requires abundant, cheap and skilled labor.
Tea Producing States: Major tea producing states are Assam, hills of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura.
The top destinations for Indian tea — Russia, the UAE, and Iran — account for about 46 per cent of its total exports.