Oasis Tea Industries that was established last year in Suryodaya Municipality, Ilam, has now been closed. The Covid-19 pandemic has not spared even this small tea producer in eastern Nepal.
The famous tea gardens of the district are lush with new tea leaves. But there is nobody to pick them or package them. Factories are shut. There is no one to take orders or deliver them to the market. Nor is any cargo company operating to take orders and ship the stock abroad.
“Our importers from abroad are not placing orders. They seem to be in a wait and see mode,” says Jyoti Adhikari, owner of the company.
The company exported 1,300 kg of tea to France last year. But Adhikari cannot even contact the French importer this year. “They don’t reply to our emails. So how can we start processing tea for this season?” he asks. His company buys fresh leaves from the gardens and processes them for exports.
“Since we haven’t even cleared last year’s stocks, we cannot buy new leaves this year,” Adhikari adds. “We are short of funds to keep the factory running.”
Not only Oasis, most tea factories in Nepal’s 14 districts where tea is grown have been closed due to the corona crisis. Ilam and Jhapa are Nepal’s two biggest tea-producing districts.
Nepal exports 90 percent of its tea to India. But the Indian tea dealers have already stopped imports due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nepal had exported 14.5 million kg tea to India last year, according to National Tea and Coffee Development Board, earning Rs 2.88 billion in the process.
“Under current circumstances, the first batch of tea leaves will go to waste. This will affect the quality of tea we produce for the rest of the year,” Adhikari says.
Tea producers are worried that they will lose a lot of money with the stoppage of exports. They export the finest and most expensive products. “The leaves we would pick this season would be of the best quality, the ones to attract third-country importers,” says Udaya Chapagain, proprietor of Gorkha Tea Estate.
Nepal’s tea goes to 30 countries including to Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the UAE, and the US. Nepal had altogether exported 498,596 kg tea to those countries last year, according to the board records.
“If we can’t sell tea, we will be bankrupt. The factories can’t pay back bank loans or bear other expenses,” adds Chapagain.
Adhikari estimates that the closure will directly affect over 29,000 people across the country whose livelihood depends on the tea industry.
Factories in Ilam have over 100,000 kilos of tea left over from last year’s stock. “If the corona crisis continues, both the farmers and traders face a very uncertain future,” says Gopal Kattel, secretary of Suryodaya Tea Producers’ Association.
