Nghe An farmers and businesses 'share difficulties' in selling tea during the 'epidemic season'

"SHARE DIFFICULTIES" TOGETHER

Despite difficulties in exporting due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, tea factories still find ways to sell all of their fresh tea buds to the people. Photo: Thanh Phuc

The 2021 spring tea crop was a bumper one, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic,tea prices down,slow consumptionDespite the difficulties caused by the epidemic, slow tea consumption, and increased transportation costs, tea factory owners are still proactive in purchasing and consuming fresh tea products for growers.

Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, Thanh Mai Green Tea Cooperative said: “The cost of transporting tea by waterway to other countries is three times higher than before the epidemic. Previously, a container of tea transported by ship with a travel time of 56 days cost 51 million VND, but now it has increased to 140 million VND (nearly three times higher than before). The cost of transportation has increased, other costs have increased, but the price of tea is still low, and consumption is also slower.”

Tea growers also proactively share difficulties with businesses regarding prices, debt, and even support some tea processing stages. Photo: Thanh Phuc

However, it is worth noting that in the midst of common difficulties, cooperatives and tea factory owners still purchase fresh tea from growers and give people advance payments to buy materials and fertilizers to take care of tea plants for the next harvest.

Mr. Phan Dinh Duong, owner of a tea factory in Hanh Lam (Thanh Chuong) said: "In the last spring tea crop, the factory still purchased thousands of tons of tea for the farmers, ensuring that they would buy everything as soon as the farmers harvested. Exports have slowed down, so the source of money is limited. The family has mobilized loans to pay the farmers on time, helping them have capital to reinvest in taking care of the tea trees."

Since the beginning of 2021, due to the complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, technical experts from partners have not been able to come to check the quality of tea, so they have not exported it due to lack of procedures. Faced with this situation, many factories have proactively sought ways to cope, such as sending samples for testing, committing to the quality of tea, and if they cannot guarantee it, they will bear all costs... To overcome the immediate difficulties, many tea factories have accepted to sell at "break even" or with little profit to large domestic companies and enterprises to recover capital and have money to pay people.

Thanh Mai commune officials encouraged and shared with tea growers in Da Bia hamlet. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Some factories join together and share the market together, jointly export containers of quality tea, and at the same time, seek new partners and expand the export market to countries such as Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

Accompanying businesses, tea growers have shared difficulties by: many households selling tea on credit to factories without interest; focusing on caring for and harvesting tea buds of the best quality; at peak processing times, being ready to support tea factories in transportation, packaging and some processing stages...

On the local government side, from hamlets, communes to districts, meetings and exchanges were also organized to encourage people to overcome difficulties when tea prices dropped, stabilize their mentality, focus on taking care of tea trees and best prepare for the upcoming tea harvest, and proactivelyDrought-resistant solutions for tea plants.In addition, coordinate with departments and branches to create conditions for business households to access loans; propose debt extension, interest rate reduction... so that they can stabilize production, processing and consumption of fresh tea buds for people.

NECESSARY TO FORM A CLEAN TEA RAW MATERIAL AREA

The VietGAP tea growing area of ​​Thanh Duc green tea cooperative (Thanh Chuong) is about 10 hectares wide and is currently being expanded. Photo: Thanh Phuc

According to tea factory owners, in the long term, to increase the value of tea trees and increase people's income, it is necessary to change production thinking. That is to formtea growing area according to VietGAP standards,creating safe raw material areas to improve the quality of green tea products, thereby processing high-quality, clean dry tea, meeting the strict criteria of demanding markets such as Japan, Taiwan, Korea... At the same time, deeply processing into many other products from green tea such as: tea bags, matcha powder, instant milk tea, herbal tea...

Specifically in Thanh Chuong, planting has been implemented.VietGAP raw tea area in Thanh Ducwith a scale of nearly 10 hectares. The results show that tea grown according to VietGAP standards has higher productivity, pesticide residues in tea and heavy metal residues are below the permitted level. This is an important factor for Nghe An tea products to compete equally with domestic and international tea as well as expand the export market. Thereby, helping tea producers and traders have more opportunities to increase the economic value of tea plants.

“The current trend is to develop tea trees sustainably, avoiding the situation of planting and then cutting them down, we must expand the export market, diversify processed products, and to do that, we must have clean raw material areas. People must change their production mindset, and businesses and the state must accompany and support.”

-Mr. Le Dinh Thanh, Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee -

Instead of using pesticides to kill weeds, Phuc Son people still diligently hoe the tea weeds to avoid pesticide residues in the soil, which affect the quality of the tea plants. Photo: Thanh Phuc

As for the people, they also strongly support the construction of safe raw material areas, according to VietGAP standards. “What we need most is stable output. Therefore, if clean production ensures output, we fully support it. The State and enterprises support training on planting processes, supply materials, fertilizers, and purchase products, and we, the people, commit to complying with the set standards,” said Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, a tea grower in Quang Tien village (Hung Son, Anh Son).

Up to now, the tea growing area in the province is about 12,000 hectares, the yield is 130 tons/hectare, the annual fresh tea bud output is 156,000 tons (equivalent to 31,200 tons of dry buds). However, in the province, there are only a few places that have formed tea growing areas according to VietGAP standards on a small scale in the districts: Anh Son, Thanh Chuong...