NEWS: ARZU ERBAŞ -As preparations for the 2024 fresh tea campaign continue, one of the most wondered topics is what kind of tea purchasing policy private sector tea factories will implement due to high inflation and the price of fresh tea. While the chambers of agriculture in Rize and Trabzon recommend that the price of 1 kilogram of fresh tea, which costs at least 18 TL, should be 25 TL, there is concern that the possibility of private sector tea factories not being able to access the hot money required for payments due to increased costs and high interest rates will cause grievance to the producers. In order to prevent this victimization to some extent, the regional chambers of agriculture, which frequently warn producers to prune in order to sell tea to ÇAYKUR, also warned the private sector.
Rize Chamber of Agriculture President Bünyamin Arslan stated that he did not think that the private sector could make a purchase below the price of tea and said, “No one should have any doubt that if the private sector deliberately tries to crush our producers, we will organize with our producers and give the necessary response. We all know the economic situation in our country. I wish the inflation rates in the country were low, so that our tea prices would be low too. It seems a little difficult for the private sector to access hot money, interest rates are very high. If we put ourselves in the place of the private sector, we need to take a loan from the bank in order to buy fresh tea at cash price. The private sector could not use the fresh tea support loan last year, and it is most likely that it will not be able to use it this year. He may not be able to take out a loan with fifty percent and buy your fresh tea with cash, it does not seem possible to buy it with hot money. “I hope it will be possible,” he said.
‘LET’S DO OUR PRUNING, DON’T LEAVE THE MARKET IN THE HANDS OF CERTAIN PEOPLE’
Arslan, who warned the producers about pruning again, said, “As you know, the tea production capacity in the Black Sea Region is around 1 million 250 thousand tons. Our daily processing capacity is clear. If we do not prune, if we do not open our ÇAYKUR tea wallets, the entire burden will fall on the private sector and there will be a stampede. Manufacturing surplus product will emerge. This will definitely disrupt the price balance. We made an announcement together with all our Chambers of Agriculture to organize our producers so that the price balance is not disrupted. “We should definitely do our pruning, let’s not leave the market in the hands of certain people,” he said.
