Frost wreaks havoc on tea plantations

Coimbatore: Lakhs of tea pluckers have been struggling without adequate income for the past two weeks. With frost continuing to extensively damage tea leaves across the district, labourers have no leaves to pluck. Those who used to work in four to five farms and managing to find work at least six days a week have hardly found work for one or two days. Labourers are mentally prepared for this situation to continue until February mid when rain is expected to clear the frost.
Joghee, 37, of Aravenu, who works as a tea labourer in a plantation near his house, has not gone to work since Thursday. “In every plantation I visit, the leaves are too burnt and cannot be plucked. I have visited all the four farms I work at,” he says. “We usually manage to work six days a week, taking Sunday off. We work at four to five farms, visiting each farm every 15 days and working for around three days. However, with all the plantations damaged, we are being sent away by the farmers and we cannot blame them either. All the leaves have turned black.”

Frost make the leaves look scorched or completely black in colour. “When even mild frost falls on tea leaves, it stunts their growth. It also causes leaf blister,” said executive director of Tea Board of India C Paulrasu. “Factories do not buy them,” he said.

There are around 50,000 hectares of tea plantations across the Nilgiris, of which around 7,000 come under corporate companies. Nearly 3 lakh people across the hill district work as pluckers in these plantations. In Aravenu alone, around 25,000 labourers work in tea plantations. “We run our families with the Rs 300 a day we earn five to six days a week,” said another labourer T Ramakrishnan. The women earn around Rs 200 a day.

Small growers with holdings between 1 and 20 hectares say they are the most affected. “We depend on our earnings every fortnight to ensure the cash flow does not get disturbed,” says Thumboor I Bojan, president of the Hill District Small Growers Welfare Association. “With frost being severe for three weeks, we have not got any income. We have stopped hiring labourers,” he said. “We demand a compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre from the state and that frost should be declared a natural calamity,” he added.

Planters say they see frost every year and it does affect the plantations, but they recover soon due to a rain. “This year because of the extreme low temperatures, the frost is more severe. But it is only plantations in Ooty and Kundha which are severely damaged because temperatures dip to -1 and -2 deg C sometimes,” said Udayabhanu, deputy director, advisory services, Planters Association of Tamil Nadu. “Around 40% of the tea plantations are in those two areas. Among the corporate sector’s 7,000 hectares, around 700 hectares have been damaged so far.”