History and evolution of Iran’s tea industry in the last 70 years
The technical advisor of the organization and the country’s tea fund spoke about the history and evolution of the Iranian tea industry in the last 70 years on the occasion of the 125th birthday of Kashif al-Saltanah.
Abdullah Mir Hosseini Moghaddam said: Iranian tea is an identity product and has carried important events in the contemporary history of Iran and has experienced from the support of governments to the challenges before and after the victory of the revolution in his life record.
He added: The first area where Iranian tea was grown was land in the Khansar tea neighborhood of Lahijan. This event took place in 1280 AH by the late Kashif al-Saltanah (father of Iranian tea).
Mir Hosseini continued: Later, a person named Basir al-Tajjar, due to the activities of Kashif al-Saltanah in the capital during the constitutional years, kept his tea garden in Lahijan, and considering that Lahijan was a suitable place for growing this product, he propagated its seedlings in the region.
He said: According to some locals, this processed tea was so pleasant and tasty that it was branded among the urban and rural communities of that period and did not need to be advertised to promote consumption.
The technical advisor of the organization and the country’s tea fund, stating that for this reason, this product was propagated by Basir al-Tajjar and other investors in some northern cities, including Tonekabon and Fumanat, and many gardens were built, said: After a few years, this product is considered by the government. It was decided that the government preferred to build state gardens in all neighborhoods for tea cultivation so that the government would benefit from it.
He noted that with the increase in the number of tea gardens and the need to process it on a large scale, the government also established several factories for this purpose.
Mir Hosseini stated: With the increasing popularity of tea in Lahijan, even ordinary people grew tea seedlings in their backyards, with this description, the economy of the region was affected by tea.
He said: Consecutive years passed in the same way and people cultivated the crop with financial security and welfare that they had gained by relying on tea-making jobs, and a good living condition became prevalent in the region until September 1320, with the outbreak of World War II. And fear arose in the hearts of the people, so that the motivation of the farmers to harvest the crop was minimized and the tea gardens were abandoned.
The advisor of the country’s tea organization said: After the revolution, due to special conditions, the production and distribution of tea was completely monopolized by the government. During these years, the government monopolized the purchase of green leaves and dry tea by leasing all private sector tea factories, along with state-owned factories. The Tea Organization was under the Ministry of Commerce until 1370, and with the policy of mixing foreign and domestic tea, there were no problems in the production and supply of tea. In 1991, with the slogan of self-sufficiency policy in the tea sector, the Tea Organization separated from the Ministry of Commerce and joined the then Ministry of Agriculture.
He said: The policies adopted by this ministry have led to a slight improvement of tea regardless of its quality, and this action has led to the fact that low-quality domestic tea alone can not be sold and the percentage of foreign tea mixed with it has increased day by day. It was sold separately, and on the other hand, the taste of consumers tended to consume foreign tea. These factors, as well as the lack of increase in the price of green leaves compared to other agricultural products and the increase in inflation, caused farmers to turn to low production in order to reduce the income compensation and as a result caused a sharp decline in the quality of domestic tea.
He added: Due to the mentioned factors and the non-competitive nature of the country’s tea production and operation system and the lack of use of new technology in tea factories caused the gradual accumulation of about 80,000 tons of annual tea in warehouses. Therefore, the government had to reform the structure. Approve the country’s tea organization in March 1999 and announce it for implementation in early 2000, at the same time as the start of the operation period.
Mir Hosseini pointed out: With the start of the project in early 1379, there was a relative success in increasing the quality of green leaves and dry tea produced, but in the continuation of the same year, due to the problems of the project in not creating cultural grounds and its immediate implementation and non-implementation Some of its basic clauses (such as clause 6 on buying quality unsold dry tea left by factories at the expert price for up to three months) and the lack of acceptance of domestic traders to buy quality dry tea, lack of attention to the important principle of orchard cultivation and management instability The tea trustee failed from the beginning.
He added: Also, tea growers have been affected and the managers of tea factories did not succeed due to the failure to sell their tea, which resulted in the smuggling of tens of thousands of tons of foreign tea annually and the accumulation of more than 120,000 tons of dry tea in warehouses and debts. The transfer of factory managers to the banking system amounted to one hundred billion tomans.
He said: In 2004, in order to prevent political crises and under the pretext of reviving and improving the northern tea gardens, the government approved and implemented the payment of gratuitous aid to tea growers for five years. But the result of the one-year implementation of this project by paying 700 thousand tomans per hectare in the first year of the project was the release, demolition and change of use of orchards and the closure of tea factories and regional crises. Therefore, the government tried to prepare a plan to prevent this crisis in the second half of 1383, but in the end, in late March 2004, the parliament obliged the government to purchase green leaves and dried tea in accordance with paragraph b of note 7 of the program law.
He added: The Economic Council, after various and long-term consultations in May 2005 and at the same time with the start of the operation period, entrusted the management of purchasing green leaves and dry tea to the Rural Cooperative Organization of the country. Despite the unpreparedness to do the above (due to lack of facilities, skilled manpower and lack of experience in this field), the Rural Cooperative Organization took action with all its might in the shortest possible time and from the very beginning with two The main problem included the lack of cooperation of the staff of the General Directorate of Northern Tea, whose forces were on the verge of redemption after the dissolution of the Tea Organization and did not have any job security, which had to be used, and the second problem was the reluctance of factories to sign a contract with the Rural Cooperative Organization. .