2007: Cheerful year for plantation crops growers

摘要

For all the plantation crops except for tea, the year 2007 has been good and that in turn has brought some cheers to the growers. Decline in production when the demand is on the upward move had pushed up the prices of coffee, cardamom and pepper. Whereas, in the case of tea despite drop in production the prices of this cash crop rather declined instead of moving up in 2007. In the whole of 2007, total export of tea is estimated, at 180 mkg as compared to 219 mkg in 2006. The drop in exports will be more in respect of South Indian tea than the North Indian varieties. Indian Tea Association attributes the drop to three factors namely, appreciation of the rupee (as much as 15 per cent within 12 months), bumper crop in Kenya, and substantial drop in shipments to Iraq due to remittance problem.