17-member Indian team in Colombo for UN meet on tea

Monday, 30 January 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Kolkata: India is sending a 17-member delegation to the 20th session of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Inter-Governmental Group on tea to be held in Colombo from 30 January to 1 February.

“The focus of the meeting will be on several major issues, namely, the MRL (maximum residue level of pesticides in tea), the impact of climate change and market development,” Tea Board of India Chairman M.G.V.K Bhanu told Business Line.

“We do not eat tea, we drink it after brewing and, therefore, the residue level in the brew is critical.”

Also, as he emphasised, the regulatory issues in this regard should lay stress on the need for adoption of uniform standards globally. The MRL issue in tea, it might be noted, has been the subject of discussion for a long time with little progress being made towards a consensus.

Referring to the adverse impact of climate change on the production and quality of tea, the Tea Board Chairman indicated that the implementation of ISO 3720 would come up for a review.

Market development and the medium-term outlook for tea are also issues that are expected to attract attention. The factors affecting demand would also be discussed. The issue was critical in the context of political uncertainty in some of the key markets and the global financial crisis, which was affecting an industry that has a sizeable exposure to exports. Basudeb Banerjee, who was Chairman of the Tea Board till October 2010, has been invited to the Colombo meeting to speak on small tea growers. When contacted, Banerjee, currently Principal Secretary, Commerce and Industry and IT, Government of West Bengal, said he would not be able to attend the meeting because of his preoccupation in the State. However, he had sent a paper to the conference.

A significant feature of the Colombo session would be the launch of an interactive electronic forum to facilitate interaction among tea producing countries, particularly, during the two-year period between two sessions of FAO/IGG on Tea.

The Tea Board Chairman will lead the Indian delegation that would have as members, among others: Deputy Chairman Roshni Sen, Tea Board Director (Research) Dr. Biswajit Bera, Chairman C.S Bedi, Indian Tea Association Secretary-General M. Dasgupta, Chairman D.P Maheswari, Director Dr. M. Hazarika, , Tea Research Association Secretary Joydeep Phukan, President D. Hegde, UPASI Secretary-General Ulhas Menon and Ministry of Commerce Director (Plantations) S.K Jha.

Delegates from 25 countries, including the major tea producers, consumers and importers, would attend the Colombo meeting. The 19th session of the FAO/IGG on tea was held in New Delhi in May 2010. Established in 1969, the United Nations FAO/ Inter-Governmental Group on tea is a forum of tea producers and consumers that discusses and debates important issues facing the global tea industry and firms up policies and strategies for it.