[ad_1]
Tea cultivators in Shan are struggling to recruit staff attributable to low wages in addition to battle, whereas an absence of funding and infrastructure is inhibiting exports.
By FRONTIER
“If you’re born right into a Ta’ang household, it’s important to be a tea grower,” mentioned Ko Win Naung, 40, who runs a tea plantation in northern Shan State’s Palaung Self-Administered Zone. “You can not separate tea from the Ta’ang.”
The 40-acre plantation, which was established by Win Naung’s grandparents, hugs the slope of a mountain about an hour’s bike experience from Lone Tauk, a village of greater than 600 households belonging to the Ta’ang ethnic group, also referred to as the Palaung.
Tea has been cultivated for hundreds of years within the hills round Lone Tauk, because it has in different villages in Namhsan Township, however lately tea growers have been struggling to get by.
Win Naung’s plantation used to provide about 1,000 viss (1,630 kilogrammes or 3,600 kilos) of tea leaf a yr, however manufacturing dropped throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and is but to get better.
“Final yr, I may solely produce 80 viss. This yr we will likely be fortunate if we are able to produce 50,” he mentioned. “I’ve an enormous tea-leaf plantation, however I can’t discover labourers, so I can’t do something.”
Win Naung isn’t alone in coping with a labour scarcity. Many tea growers in Shan are struggling to recruit staff who’ve largely sought better-paid work elsewhere.
To make issues worse, costs of the commodity have fluctuated wildly lately. The pandemic compelled the closure of many teashops and eating places all through the nation and tea costs remained low amid the instability following the 2021 navy coup. Costs have recovered this yr as demand returns, however output stays subdued.
A labour disaster
In addition to Namhsan, tea is grown in Mantong Township, additionally in Palaung SAZ, in addition to in neighbouring Kyaukme and Hsipaw townships.
Producing tea is the primary livelihood for the Ta’ang dwelling on this space of northern Shan. In Namhsan, they identify the rugged terrain after the crop: laphet taung (tea-leaf mountains).
The leaves of the bushes, that are used to make tea and the standard snack of pickled tea-leaf salad, are harvested from March to November after which dried earlier than sale. After the harvest is completed, the tea bushes are pruned.
Ko Thein Oo, who owns a plantation in Kyaukme, has additionally been affected by the scarcity of staff, most of whom are ladies from exterior Shan.
“The plantations are huge so numerous labour is required. Bamar folks from Anyar used to come back to select the leaves,” Thein Oo mentioned, referring to the arid heartland of Myanmar’s ethnic Bamar majority in Mandalay, Magway and Sagaing areas.
“In some villages [in Kyaukme and Namhsan townships], there can be a number of hundred of those folks,” Thein Oo added.
“It might be very crowded in our space from March to April once we started harvesting the tea leaf. Enterprise was good,” he mentioned.
The early harvest yields the highest quality leaves, generally known as Shwe Phee, which fetch the very best costs. In southern Shan, the first-picked tea leaves are generally known as moe lut. There’s a 15-day window for selecting them when demand for labour soars.
Tea growers advised Frontier that they started noticing 5 years in the past that fewer folks had been coming to work on the plantations.
“Since about 2018, there was preventing within the plantation areas between armed teams and so they [the workers] don’t come a lot anymore,” mentioned Thein Oo, referring to battle between the Ta’ang Nationwide Liberation Military and the Restoration Council of Shan State. One other ethnic armed group, the Shan State Progress Get together, later joined the combat on the facet of TNLA. Each finally compelled the RCSS to retreat from giant areas of Shan.
Thein Oo mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic turned the labour scarcity right into a disaster. “When COVID-19 occurred they stopped coming to us. At the moment there have been lockdowns and travelling was restricted. On the similar time, tea leaf costs fell,” he mentioned.
In 2020 and 2021, the value of a viss of Shwe Phee tea leaf plunged from K7,000 to almost K4,000.
Greener fields
Tea growers in southern Shan are additionally struggling, regardless of having loved a surge in demand as a result of battle within the north, which prompted merchants to as an alternative purchase from the southern townships of Ywangan and Pindaya, within the Danu SAZ, and Pinlaung, within the Pa-O SAZ.
“At the moment, the market bought higher,” mentioned Ko Tun, a dealer who buys tea from these townships and sells it in Yangon and Mandalay.
Nonetheless, the COVID-19 outbreak additionally affected the market in southern Shan. Costs started to fall and remained low for the subsequent two years. However regardless of demand returning, the day price for labourers has remained unchanged, whereas the price of dwelling has soared.
“In southern Shan State, labourers on tea plantations are paid solely K5,000 a day. How can they even afford to eat on that?” mentioned Ko Tun.
In some villages in northern Shan, conversely, labourers are paid in type and take half of what they’ve picked, however that is additionally meagre compensation.
“If they will choose 20 viss in a month, they’ll take 10 viss and the plantation proprietor takes the remaining 10,” Thein Oo defined.
“Final yr, when a viss was fetching about K5,000 available on the market, a employee who may choose 20 viss a month may solely earn K100,000. So, folks don’t wish to work on tea plantations anymore.”
The scarcity of migrant Bamar labour has prompted plantation house owners to attempt to make use of native youth as an alternative. This has been extra frequent in southern Shan, the place plantations are usually underneath 10 acres and due to this fact require much less labour. Nonetheless, in frequent with the Bamar staff, the native youth choose to hunt better-paid work in different places.
“All of them wish to go and work in locations equivalent to Laukkai and Panghsang, or in Thailand,” Thein Oo mentioned. Laukkai and Panghsang are cities on the border with China within the Kokang SAZ and Wa Self-Administered Division, respectively. There many migrant staff discover jobs at lodges, eating places, casinos and development websites.
“There are few younger folks within the villages anymore. Most of them go to work [elsewhere] as a result of they will get higher salaries than working at a tea plantation,” Win Naung mentioned.
One in every of them is Ko Hla Kyaw, 24, from Manwe village in Namhsan, who works at a resort in Laukkai.
“In Laukkai, we are able to earn a minimal of K500,000 a month. If we are able to communicate Chinese language, we are able to earn much more,” he mentioned.
“Individuals from the Anyar area are additionally going to Laukkai, Panghsang and different areas. The earnings there’s a lot increased [than on tea plantations],” Hla Kyaw added.
A paralysed market
Residents of tea rising areas mentioned that whilst costs rise, this yr’s harvest has been hampered by the labour scarcity in addition to extended sizzling climate.
“The yield is low even in northern Shan State, so there’s a chance that the value will rise additional,” mentioned Ko Tun.
In April, Shwe Phee tea leaf reached K10,000 a viss, doubling what it was fetching final yr. Nonetheless, this has offered little comfort to tea growers.
“After all, the value has elevated. However commodity costs and inflation are going up, too,” mentioned Thein Oo.
“Earlier than the navy coup, should you offered a viss of tea you possibly can purchase a viss of oil and different commodities. Now, the value of a viss of tea is identical as for a viss of oil,” he mentioned.
The value will increase do “not resolve the issue”, mentioned Ko Aung San, proprietor of a 40-acre tea plantation and a small tea manufacturing unit in Lone Tauk that produces about 80 viss of tea a day.
Aung San mentioned the labour scarcity means he can not harvest all his crop.
“If I harvest all my acres, I can produce greater than 1,000 viss of tea leaves,” he mentioned, including that manufacturing had fallen to between 300 and 500 viss.
Aung San mentioned that the re-opening of the Chinese language border this yr, following the lifting of Beijing’s “zero COVID” coverage, has had little influence on the trade as a result of “the home market accounts for greater than 80 % of tea consumption.”
That is doubtless an under-estimate. State-owned newspaper The World New Gentle of Myanmar reported in December 2021 that exports to China, Thailand, the European Union and different markets between October 2020 and September 2021 totalled 4,900 tonnes. United Nations Meals and Agriculture Group figures present that 115,848 tonnes had been produced in 2021, so solely about 4pc of that yr’s crop was exported.
The outlier is the tea trade within the Wa SAD and Kokang SAZ, whose proximity with China facilitates exports. These areas have additionally averted labour shortages by using native folks, Win Naung mentioned. Frontier couldn’t independently confirm this declare.
As well as, Chinese language patrons choose the “white tea” produced in these border enclaves, which entails extra superior processing than the “black tea” from the Palaung SAZ and close by townships.
“We have to create high-quality merchandise. If we are able to do this, we are able to export to China,” Aung San mentioned. Myanmar cultivators largely keep on with conventional strategies, which he mentioned “should be changed by fashionable methods”.
In different nations, plantation house owners use motorised rolling gear and dry the leaves both in particular machines or greenhouses with plastic protecting.They’ll additionally entry laboratories to watch leaf high quality.
Myanmar growers, against this, largely lack these amenities. On account of a restricted energy provide, a lot of them put the hand-picked leaves by way of a guide curler operated by 4 or 5 folks. The leaves are then dried on a bamboo mat within the solar, which exposes them to contamination from mud and sand.
“The federal government ought to assist expertise and mechanisation for tea growers,” Ko Tun mentioned.
Win Naung defined that regardless of coaching and different assist from growers’ associations, most cultivators are unable to embrace new methods due to the absence of electrical energy, an absence of cash for funding and transport difficulties.
However Win Naung mentioned fixing the labour scarcity is a better precedence.
“If this drawback continues to develop, I must stroll away from my plantation and get one other job,” he mentioned.
[ad_2]
Source link
