The Brew That Cheers
WITH the Tea Development Policy-2057 coming into effect, the government, as
per a news report carried by this daily, not only has plans to increase the annual output
of tea from the existing 8.3 million kilograms to 46.1 million kilograms within the next
10 years, but also to bring more lands under tea cultivation during the same period by,
among others, giving necessary incentives to the farmers. The increase in tea production,
apart from earning a profit amounting to Rs.14 billion annually for the nation, is also
expected to generate employment opportunities for about 80,000 Nepalese. Though Mother
Nature seems to have overlooked Nepal while disbursing mineral resources, she has
definitely compensated this oversight by endowing the nation with various climatic and
topographical variations that are congenial for the cultivation of myriad grains, fruits
and crops. Amongst the latter, one is the cultivation of the brew that cheers—that
is, tea.
Although the history of tea cultivation in Nepal is hardly a few decades old,
almost all Nepalese are familiar with this crop and brew, thanks to the import of tea,
mostly from our neighbour down south of the border. One ready reason why the nation, until
a few decades back, was without any tea estate worth the name could be due to the mistaken
belief that the nation lacked suitable soil and climatic conditions. While this notion,
mercifully, has been completely debunked by the flourishing tea estates in the eastern
districts of the nation, the urgent need to put more hectares under tea cultivation to
meet the increasing demand for tea at home and abroad has not been lost to the government
and concerned parties alike. However, bringing more land under tea cultivation without
coming up with necessary infrastructure in those areas and incentives for the cultivators
could, in the long run, dampen the interested farmers and parties’ enthusiasm to go
in for tea cultivation. For one, tea plant has a fairly long gestation period, especially
in the hills, before it could yield the desired output. Secondly, it requires adequate
inputs in the form of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. Herein, while the
government’s recently announced incentives in the form of soft loans and tax breaks
to interested farmers should be termed as timely and adequate, it goes without saying that
the concerned authorities must come up with requisite measures to ensure the qualitative
and quantitative enhancement of tea production in the country.
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