An Appraisal of Constraints Faced by Tea (Camellia sinensis) Value Chain Players during COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

The present study aims at to identify the important stakeholders (Small tea growers, green tea leaf collector, processor, wholesaler and retailer) of the tea value chain, and constraints faced by them during the COVID-19 pandemic. All the stakeholders of the value chain faced different problem according to their way of operation, among them tea growers faced maximum problem regarding growing of green tea leaves. To identify the important constraints, we used Garrett’s ranking technique. The study revealed that, unavailability of inputs on peak plucking time was the main constraint faced by the small tea growers with 75.39 average score in garret ranking. In case of leaf collector, processor and wholesaler/ retailers the main problems were restricted transportation (81.66), unavailability of quality tealeaves (77.43) and price instability respectively (85.34).