Clean tea cannot compete with dirty one

In an effort to improve the tea quality, many tea cooperatives in Vietnam have been following international production processes in making tea, such as VietGap and UZT. However, they have failed to increase the value of the Vietnamese tea products in the world market.

Do Thi Hiep, Chair of the Tan Huong Tea Cooperative, which is making tea in accordance with UZT, said that the cooperative began following the process in June 2011, while the first successes were made in November 2011. By that time, 30 members of the cooperative had made tea in accordance with UZT standards on the growing area of 14 hectares which could provide 27 tons of standard products.

However, farmers have become disappointed with their decision to grow and process “clean tea.” They have to spend a lot of exertion to follow the steps of the production process and spend big money to have their products tested. Meanwhile, the sale prices are not high enough to cover the expenses.

The local farmers can only sell tea to local merchants, who then would then provide to tea processing factories. Meanwhile, the merchants do not accept to pay higher for the clean tea with high quality. On the Thai Nguyen market, for example, under-standard tea is still purchased by the merchants at the same prices as clean tea.

A member of the Tan Huong Cooperative complained that he has got tired of growing clean tea, saying that if consumers do not boycott low quality products and only choose to buy cheap products, the farmers would not be able to live on growing clean tea.

Making safe tea products has been pointed out by experts as the best way for Vietnam to upgrade the value of its tea products in the world market. However, Vietnamese farmers have not been supported to follow that way. Very few companies have accepted to fund the clean tea production program.

Especially, the farmer said clean tea remains unfamiliar to domestic consumers.

Vietnam had 133,000 hectares of tea growing area in 2011 and 2 million workers in the industry. However, the big tea producer has been exporting tea at the lowest prices in the world.

In 2010, Vietnam sold tea at 1164 dollars per ton to the world. Meanwhile, in Europe, the tea price was 10,134 dollars per ton on average.

Vietnam now is topping the US’ list of the tea exporters who have the highest volumes of refused tea exports. On the domestic market, cooperatives and enterprises have been competing fiercely with each other by squeezing prices down to scramble for buyers.

What to do to escape bad reputation?

Nguyen Quoc Vong, an agriculture expert from Australia, said that Vietnamese leaders should consider tea production a key industry that can bring high income to the national economy. Therefore, he believes that Vietnam needs to establish a tea committee which would be in charge of building up a legal framework, technical procedures and import-export regulations to ensure the effective state management.

The idea has been applauded by the tea producers from Lao Cai province. They said that Kenya, who has similar conditions like Vietnam’s, has also established a tea committee with an aim to develop the industry.

Meanwhile, an official of the Lam Dong province does not think such a committee is not necessary, since Vietnam now has an apparatus already to manage the agriculture development, including the tea production.

He said that what Vietnam needs to do now is to set up standards to manage the tea production process, from plantation to processing, and standards for exports.

Hai Duong