Tea District of Cachar:
The step motherly part of Assam Of all the tea districts of India the only one I had not visited till early this year was Cachar. Every time a trip was planned something more important came up and the trip was put-off. However, I have of late made two thorough visits into Cachar and regret my earlier decision to put the trips off. Having lost time earlier I have driven through the length & breadth of the District – from Cahndighat in the North East down to Sephinjuribheel in the South East, close to Bangladesh. Korkoree & Bikrampore in the North, Derby in the East and Aenakhal in the South. And the more I see of it the more exciting this tea district looks. 1. The Tillas: I had heard about the famous Tillas but now I know they are beautiful and add so much character to the rolling topography. Besides the beauty this holds fantastic possibilities of water management. Low cost ‘check-gate based’ water reservoirs would change the whole micro climate during the dry weather, yet retain the current bed level for the rest of the year, preventing silting. Sub-soil dams could help kick out water from heights to be moved by gravity to where it is required. Locating a couple of Koilamari-type big wells could very cheaply meet the irrigation needs and reduce the double stage pumping in many estates.
2. The Tea: There are some very good stands of tea. And the yields are good & could give the rest of Assam a run for their money. In fact, in time to come the rise of the water tables in major parts of Assam could help Cachar get far ahead. The Organic Matter status of the soils is generally good. The only worry to me was the far too efficient control of weeds on the slopes of the Tillas, This is taking away the most useful components of the top soils - clear signs of erosion are visible across vast areas that I drove past. This could so easily be prevented by retaining some undergrowth during the rains & a few minor in-expensive measures.
3. The Forest: There are huge areas of forest (parts of it a bit degraded) within and around estates.
          a. Fuel - There is tremendous amount of fuel and potential to grow the complete fuel requirement for at least the drying & withering processes. While coal, gas & oil prices zoom, as we all know, Cachar could control the otherwise spiraling energy cost. State electricity is also likely to hike prices in the immediate future, now that the elections are done with & the electricity boards have to address the deficits being created.
          b. Organic - Cachar has a huge potential to convert areas to organic. In fact they would find it easiest to convert & at much lower cost.
                   i. The predator population in the estates was found to be far more  than  in the Dooars and Upper & Lower Assam. This is largely due to the adjoining forests and the naturally growing shrubs in the hulas. This is already helping in a better balance ‘between predator & prey’ across the agro-ecosystem in the estate environment - thus keeping their pests under better control. The pesticide usage is also much less than some of the other tea growing districts.
                   ii. Enhancing soil health is the corner stone of the organic farming system. This is relatively easy (& low cost) to achieve with soil fertility management practices, taking into account regional conditions and locally adapting systems. There is a lot of diversity : fauna, flora and the soil types. Protection of the soil from nutrient depletion, compaction, structural breakdown, increasing microbial activity in the soils, ground water depletion & runoff are all manageable. iii. The availability of Organic Matter for composting and applying is literally limit-less. Theft of shade trees is much less and availability of land a plenty. Now that is more than half the battle won in the process of conversion to Organic.
4. Plucking: The labour shortage is a major problem in Cachar. Large areas were grossly overgrown and managers expressed their in ability to manage plucking because of the huge non-availability of workers. During the festive season (I visited in between the Durga & Kali Puja) the factories were overflowing with long leaf, the CTC’s outputs had to be reduced to cope with this coarse leaf causing the factories to run non stop for days, …. The quality of the product was poor. But I must admit that the appearance of the tea was commendable as compared to the leaf being manufactured.
                    a. The leaf was so long & coarse that most managers were overlooking the use of a small sickle that the pluckers were carrying to manage harvesting this leaf.
                    b. I actually get amazed when discussing with many planters (and some owners & Gen Managers) about the use of Mechanical harvesters. They will see long leaf waving in their faces but still have the audacity to ask “Won’t it spoil my quality”. Assam is possibly even more conservative because this question comes more as a statement of fact. Cachar was more receptive and many managers wanted to start mechanical harvesting by next year.
                   c. A week earlier I was in Terai at an estate called Nuxalbari. Their situation for plucking was slightly better than in Cachar. Long overgrown leaf, huge volumes in the factory moving slowly through the tiered CTCs, but here again the product coming out was far superior to what one would expect from such leaf. Great work. But it left much to be desired in a discerning market.
                               i. The management in Nuxalbari was upfront to discuss alternatives & very open to look at options. Let me tell you that 4 Kawasaki mechanical harvesters were put into operation 3 days ago. And one more is reaching there by 2nd November.
                              ii. Commendable speed of action by the management to tackle this problem. See the photographs below, after the first full day of training. Two-man & Single man harvesters in operation in Nuxalbari Tea Estate (see the photographs) A section harvested on 1st Nov 2011 to prepare it for next year’s Unpruned
5. Development: There is work on development going on.
              a. Many estates have a lot of ‘plantable’ areas available but are not extending as they can not pluck their current areas. If mechanisation is introduced this will become possible. If more areas are brought under tea then the scare of loosing crop with finer plucking will disappear.
             b. There were some very good nurseries seen on the visit. And the section with the red-leaved clone of Sephinjuribheel looked wonderful.
6. Factories: Many of these factories have become experts on producing nice looking, black teas, even from poor leaf. However, I feel very strongly that the quality of Cachar teas can be improved dramatically.
                a. The priority seems to be to control cost and quality is secondary as the reputation in the market has typified them as of relatively inferior quality.
                          i. Target shoot is generally close to 3 + bud. When rounds slip this gets worse.
                         ii. Because of longer leaf the plucker productivity is higher & that too helps in reducing costs considerably.
                        iii. Some of the factories seen were very good with ample space and capable of handling the whole crop well. A few seemed to be a bit congested, as they were built for smaller crops & now more machines have been stuffed into open spaces. In a few cases the Fermenting rooms were suffocating (during my April visit) and the hygrometeric differences were even as much as 7 degrees. Some changes were discussed to correct this and three factories within a couple of month made the corrections & even installed the new Masterkool humidification system.

The willing ness to change and the enthusiasm of some of the managers to effect the change so readily & quickly bodes well for Cachar. If they can -
             1.    Make 2 + bud as Target Shoot.
             2.    Use some Mechanical Harvesters to ensure that leaf does not go out of hand. (This will ensure that the cost of plucking of 2+bud will be not higher than 3+bud currently being plucked by hand. There are areas below 15% slopes and these can go under Mechanical Harvesters.)
            3. Thus release some pluckers for other operations and factories. 4. Make some improvements in factories’ operations. Adopt a systems approach that puts controls on certain critical areas There could be a tremendous change in the quality & consistency of the teas. And Cachar could give the rest a run for their money.