Rials 150b Allocated For Tea Farmers

12 April 2010

Head of the North Tea Organization (NTO) said Sunday 150 billion rials in low-cost bank credits were allocated for improving and renovating tea farms at the end of March 2009-2010.

"From the said figure some 130 billion rials were given to Gilan province and the remaining to Mazandaran province. Since the start of the banking facilities in March, 7,000 tea farmers have received 50.5 billion rials.

Those who conducted improved operations in small tea estates can go to the related offices in their districts and request the loans," Ali Moharrer said, IRIB reported.

He said the period of repayment of the loans is four years and a fee of four percent has been considered for the lending. This year his organization will handle the guaranteed purchase of green tea leaves, Mehr News Agency reported.

"In March 2010-2011, based on a government approval, the task of guaranteed purchase of green tea leaves and dry tea from farmers has been assigned to the NTO. We will buy high quality tea leaves from farmers.

The organization was involved in the guaranteed purchase of tea for almost 10 years," he noted.

Moharrer emphasized that improving tea quality is a time-consuming process and plans are currently being made to this end.

"The trend of purchasing tea leaves should move toward quality tea. Therefore, this issue has been put on agenda of the organization in collaboration of tea experts," he noted.

Based on the available data, until the end of March 2009-2010 the level of guaranteed purchase of tea leaves reached 170,542 tons -- 23,327 tons of which was top quality and 147,215 tons second quality.

© Iran Daily 2010

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