By Staff Writer
Due to excessive tea import, lack of incentives for domestic tea producers and a systematic corruption, many of Iran’s tea gardens are about to be destroyed, with the rest following suit if no change in the situation is going to take place.
While it’s been years now that Iran’s tea growers have been dealing with different problems, Hassan Rouhani’s government is yet to address any of them, causing tea producers to eventually change their tea farms’ land use, cultivate another crop or even sell their farms altogether.
“The quality of Iranian tea has significantly deteriorated over the past several years. Besides, the total area under tea cultivation has also reduced from 34 thousand hectares to below 20 thousand, causing many tea workers to lose their jobs,” says head of Tea Growers Association of Northern Iran in his interview with state-run ILNA news agency on July 13, 2018.
“There was 34 thousand hectare of tea farms in northern Iran until a few years ago. But due to officials’ negligence, the figure has now reduced to less than 20 thousand, so that there’s now only 15 thousand hectares of cultivable tea farms left in northern Iran, with the rest being either out of service or having their land use changed for building villas and houses.”
The conditions of tea factories
This is not tea growers alone who are going through miserable times due to regime’s wrong policies, but northern Iran’s tea factories are also suffering a similar situation.
“Nearly 50 percent of tea factories in northern Iran have changed their land use, causing many tea farm owners, tea growers and tea factory workers to lose their jobs, with many of them immigrating to marginal areas of big cities and earning their livelihood through peddling or even beggary,” says head of Tea Growers Association of Northern Iran in his interview with state-run ILNA news agency.
He then points to decreased number of tea growers in northern Iran, saying “about two million people used to work in northern Iran’s tea farms and tea factories until a few years ago. But the number of people involved in cultivation and harvesting tea has now reduced to less than 100 thousand.”
Meanwhile, board chairman of Tea Growers Association of Gilan Province’s District Five believes that “Iran’s tea problems began in 2000, and the situation has deteriorated ever since. Mazandaran’s tea farms have dwindled to 20 percent of their initial area and Gilan’s are also gradually diminishing.” (Stae-run ILNA news agency, April 10, 2018)
The situation in Gilan and Mazandaran has caused 50 percent of the tea farms in the two provinces to be abandoned, with most of them having their land use changed by regime officials for making villas.
Predatory policy of excessive tea import
One of the main factors causing the destruction of northern Iran’s tea farms, and subsequently farmers’ lives, is the country’s excessive tea import carried out by the government and regime affiliated traders, so much so that 120 thousand tons of tea is imported every year, with the profit going right into the pockets of regime affiliated importers.
The Central Bank’s recently released list of companies that have received subsidized foreign currency from the government shows that more than 60 companies and state-linked entities are involved in importing tea using the subsidized 4200-toman US Dollar they receive from the government.
Moreover, there are still other companies, including car importers, that have received foreign currency at subsidized rates to import tea, tea makers and coffee makers, despite such products being totally irrelevant to their field of business. Rahrovan Khodro Pishgaman Negin Jonoob is one of such car importing companies that has received 134 thousand Euros for importing tea.
That’s how the country’s excessive tea import causes the Iranian tea growers to lose their jobs, their homes as well, and join the country’s army of jobless and marginal dwellers, while Iranian tea, which used to be of highest quality, has to gather dust and go bad at warehouses.
