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Pakistan can overcome its tea import bill that now stands at around Rs 50 billion per annum if the crop is cultivated on 64,000 hectares of land found suitable for it in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Dr Farukh Siyar Hamid, Director National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI) Shinkiari, Mansehra, told this to a group of journalists who visited the institute.
He said that research work on the tea crop is complete and now it is responsibility of the federal and provincial governments to commercialize it. Hamid said that Pakistan imports black tea from seventeen countries and 72 percent of it is imported from Kenya, adding that green tea is imported from three countries and 66 percent of it is imported from China. Pakistan imported tea worth Rs 3.7 billion in 1986, Rs 12.035 billion in 2006 and of Rs 50 billion in 2015, he said while sharing the import data.
"It is estimated that at the end of this decade Pakistan would be the biggest importer of black tea in the world," he said, adding that the per capita consumption of tea in Pakistan is about one kilogram annually and is continuously increasing due to increase in its demand.
He said that major tea exporting countries in the world include Sri Lanka, Kenya, China, India, Indonesia, Uganda, Tanzania and Bangladesh and major tea importers include Russia, United States, Pakistan, UK and Egypt.
"The tea cultivation is a labour intensive activity and growing tea over 64,000 hectares of land would not only overcome tea import bill but will also generate employment opportunities, besides reducing poverty in the tea growing areas," he said.
Hamid said that the areas found suitable for tea cultivation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include districts of Mansehra, Batagram, Shangla and Swat. He said that tea is a long duration crop and it takes five years to reach complete yielding stage.
"We have encouraged and trained many farmers for tea cultivation but due to lack of funds with them to install processing units, our efforts bear no fruits and, therefore, the government needs to take steps in this regard," he said, adding that following plucking of tea leaves they should be shifted to processing unit within four hours.
The NTHRI chief said that tea crop remains productive for 70 to 100 years, generates employment opportunities, makes waste land productive, saves environment against pollution, protects soil against erosion and increases life of dams/reservoirs.
About NTHRI, he said that National Research Station was upgraded to the level of institute in 1996. In 2001 the institute set up black tea processing unit with a capacity of one ton per day and set up green tea processing unit in 2005 with the capacity of 80 to 100 kg per day.
The NTHRI was converted to National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI) in 2013 and now the institute is working on fruits, vegetable, medicinal herbs, kiwi and olive plantation in addition to tae crops, he said. He said that NTHRI is spread over 50 acres of land, of which 33 acres are marked for tea garden, 2 acres for mother fruit orchard, 4.5 acres for nursery of tea, fruit, vegetable and medicinal plants as well as 10 acres for processing unit, road and buildings.
When asked about the achievement of NTHRI, he said that it conducted screening of exotic tea varieties, establishment tea garden at Dively Battal, continuation of systematic research studies, demonstration of tea crop on farmers fields in different agro-ecological zone and preparation of manual green tea. Similarly, it also established black tea and green tea processing units, conducted training of growers and supervision of students from different universities.
Hamid said that the main objectives of NTHRI include identification of potential tea growing areas, establishment of mother blocks of high value crops and training farming communities for capacity building and transfer of technologies.

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