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Small Tea Farmers Industry Concept in Nepal

  • 16th October, 2022

Although the history of Tea in Nepal looks quite beautiful, there are also some ugly truths as well. Nepal government gradually transferred the ownership of NTDC to private sectors and adopted liberal economic policy which ensured competitiveness in Tea sector as well. Small tea farmers growing up under Small Farmers Scheme -1982 were pushed behind gradually due to new economic policy so further tea garden extension was clogged again whereas many bought leaf factories (BLF) were emerged in same time. These all large scale BLF based on Indian Technology were established in accessible areas sourcing more than 85% green leaves from small tea farmers but there was always conflict on pricing between farmers and factories. In another side small tea farmers located in remote areas were unable to sell their produced green leaves due to not having factories nearby so were compelled to produce handmade tea or abandoned their tea garden. In the same scenario one of the enterprising farmer Mr. Raju Sherma Limbu who had own tea garden in remote area, flew to China in 2009 in search of small-scale tea processing machinery for self-purpose but he found those machineries more important for other suffering small tea farmers as well so decided to import in Nepal and distribute to needy farmers. Upon returning back registered the company Sherma Trade Link Pvt. Ltd. first batch of two sets machinery was imported in 2010 and one was installed Matribhumi Tea Estate Pvt. Ltd. Morang, Singhadevi and another in Nawa Arya Tara Tea Pvt. Ltd. Sriantu, Ilam.