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Bangladesh faces extinction from tea exporters' list

RAFIQ HASAN, back from Srimongal
Bangladesh may disappear from the list of tea exporting nations in the next 10 years as domestic consumption may outpace the production.
The present production of tea stands at 55 million kgs of which around 15 million kgs are exported after meeting domestic demand.
Bangladesh is now rated the 9th among tea exporting countries of the world contributing one per cent of the global tea exports.
But the situation may change after a decade as domestic consumption is increasing by 3.50 per cent annually against one per cent production growth.
Tea experts forecast that the total production of the country would stand at 60 million kgs which would be needed for meeting the local consumption.
"We need to double the production for keeping a balance in consumption and export," SAHM Tauhid, chairman of Bangladesh Tea Board told The Daily Star.
Tea experts and scientists suggest bringing more land under tea cultivation and adopting scientific
methods to increase production and the volume of export in future.
But some experts say production growth of tea is very slow due to lack of required mechanisation of tea cultivation.
"If the gardeners properly follow the suggestions of Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI), the production could be increased at least by one and a half times within one decade," said A F M Badrul Alam, director of BTRI.
The BTRI has so far innovated 15 new high-yielding varieties of tea plants which generate around 24 per cent the total production.
"We are very confident about our new varieties and trying to increase the average production per hectare to 1500 kgs from the existing 1175 kgs utilising the available technology," Badrul said.
He claimed that some gardens even produced above 3,000 kgs per hectare through BTRI cloned plants and their quality is much better than those of many other countries.
"The gardens should mechanise the cultivation process of tea which would give better result," said Azharul Islam, director project development unit of the tea board.
He observed that in spite of various modern technologies available in the agriculture sector now a days most of the gardens cultivate tea by manual ways. The tea sector mechanisation process is very slow, he added.
There are 160 tea gardens in Bangladesh covering 114,014 hectares of land in greater Sylhet and Chittagong districts. Though the area has been granted for tea cultivation, only 44 per cent came under cultivation and the rest are being used for other purposes.
However, Bangladesh Tea Board has taken up a number of projects to increase tea production and bring more lands under tea cultivation, board sources said.
A small tea cultivation programme already started in Panchagarh district with about 100 hectares of land but 32,000 hectares could be brought under tea cultivation there.
Besides, around 42,000 hectares land in three districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) are suitable for tea cultivation.
The tea board has taken up a pilot project to encourage tea cultivation in the CHT. Under the Tk five-
crore project, 100 acres each would be brought under cultivation in Khagrachhari, Rangamati, and Bandarban districts.
The farmers would be given loans at five per cent interest rate for cultivating tea on their own land. The farmers would harvest tea leaf and sell those to a centrally set up factory by the board to process the leaf.
"The prospect of tea production in the CHT is very bright," the tea board chairman told the Daily Star.
Besides, the tea board prepared a 20-year strategic plan to increase tea production in the country. The plan envisaging around Tk 707 crore expenditure has been submitted to the government for approval.
If the strategic plan is adopted by the government and implemented properly the tea production would reach up to 110 million kgs annually after the year 2020.
India, China, Sri Lanka and Kenya are now the major tea exporters in the world.