Assam Small Tea Growers Protest Price Collapse Threatening Livelihoods

Dibrugarh: Hundreds of distressed small tea growers staged a protest outside the Tea Board India’s regional office in Tinsukia on Friday, decrying the dramatic collapse in green tea leaf prices that threatens to devastate livelihoods across Assam.

Prices have plunged from a peak of Rs 52 per kg to as low as Rs 15 — well below the production cost of Rs 25-27 per kg. This unsustainable pricing has left thousands of growers, many of them educated youth who invested their savings into tea cultivation, unable to meet basic operational expenses such as wages, fertilisers, and pesticides. “We are facing complete ruin. When it costs us Rs 25 to Rs 27 to produce one kg of quality green tea leaves, how can we survive selling at Rs 15? We are operating at massive losses every day,” said Bhaskar Gohain, a small tea grower participating in the protest. Adding to their woes, protesters alleged that Bought Leaf Factories (BLFs) are increasingly sourcing green leaves from neighbouring states like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, sidelining local growers. Assam has over 200 BLFs, which play a vital role in the tea ecosystem by purchasing green leaves from small cultivators who lack their own processing units. “The BLFs are abandoning us for cheaper alternatives outside the state.

We’re being forced to sell at a loss. How can we survive with such margins? We can’t even pay our workers,” said Rashmi Rekha Boruah, another grower. Small tea growers — defined by the Tea Board as those cultivating up to 25 acres, though most own less than two — are a backbone of Assam’s tea industry. With 125,484 growers managing 117,304 hectares of land, they contribute nearly 48% of the state’s total tea production annually. At the conclusion of the demonstration, the growers submitted a detailed memorandum to Tea Board officials, demanding immediate price stabilization measures and policies to ensure BLFs prioritise local suppliers over external sourcing.