Strikes and frost in south India may lower tea production

KOCHI: Production loss because of a strike at Kanan Devan Hill Plantations and other companies a few months ago, and frost in the Nilgiris, have crimped tea supplies and stoked prices in South India, pulling down exports in the process. Arrivals in the Kochi auction centre, the principal trading centre in South India, have dropped to nearly half.

“The premium teas are holding steady, but the prices of cheaper dust teas are going up as the supplies have dwindled,” said M Soman, senior executive at tea broking firm Forbes Ewart & Figgis.

The strike in KDHP in Munnar, the largest tea plantation company in South India, over pay and bonus in September found an echo in other companies in the subsequent days, hampering tea production. “As the teas were not plucked, we had to cut off the bushes and wait for it to grow again. The re-growth is slow because of winter. However, the situation is back to normal,” said Mathew Abraham, managing director of KDHP.