Palaung Tea Farmers in Debt

Hundreds of ethnic Palaung tea farmers in Shan State are in debt to local moneylenders after taking loans to buy food, according to a report released on Thursday by an umbrella group of Palaung organizations based in Thailand.

Mai Aung Ko, a spokesperson for the Ta’ang [Palaung] Student and Youth Organization, said that there are about 500,000 Palaung people working at tea plantations in Shan State, and that half of them have had to borrow money in the past four months.

Much of the produce from the tea farms cannot be sold at markets in the Palaung region of Shan State because in March the military government banned tea that contained the preservative Auramine 0, a dangerous chemical dye that is harmful to health.

Mai Aung Ko said that the farmers have to sell their tea at very low prices. One viss (Burmese measurement equal to 1.5 kg) of tea leaves currently sells for 500 kyat (US $0.50) at local markets, as opposed to 1,000 kyat ($1) last year.

Based on a survey including interviews with 162 Palaung people affected by the crisis, the Palaung NGOs have concluded that four townships are the worst affected: Namkham, Mantong, Namshan and Kyaukme.

Workers earn roughly 1,500 kyat ($1.50) a day picking tea in Shan State. However, jobs are drying up. Some families also said they couldn’t afford to send their children to high school this year.

The report said that 100,000 Palaung tea farm workers and their families—and even some plantation owners—have abandoned the farms and gone to look for work in China or in the jade mines of Kachin State.

The crisis began when the Burmese health ministry announced in March that 100 brands of ready-made pickled tea leaves had to be taken off market shelves due to possible infection linked to Auramine 0. Following the announcement, many Palaung businessmen saw their tea crops confiscated and destroyed. 

According to the Palaung group report, local authorities then confiscated green tea believed to have been infected with Auramine O between March and April. About 200,000 viss (133,000 kg) of green tea with a market value of 400 million kyat ($400,000) was reportedly destroyed.

Local authorities allegedly threatened to put plantation owners in prison for three years if they were caught using Auramine 0 in their tea production.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Mai Bhone Kyaw, an executive member of the Palaung State Liberation Front, said, “The people are facing food insecurity. They are unable to pay for food, health and education as they have to pay off their debts.”

“The government says they want to improve and secure health for the people, but our people are hungry now. If they really want to improve people’s lives, they should set up new markets,” he said.

“The people are not very happy with the government because they cannot sell their produce at the market now,” said Mai Bhone Kyaw.

In Nanshan Township, there are many people who struggle through the day without enough food, according to the report.

Tea production is a major part of the local economy in ethnic Palaung regions of Shan State. Most tea farmed in the area is sold to Rangoon, Mandalay and other parts of Burma.

According to Myanmartea.com, a Web site representing leading tea producers, some 87,707 metric tons of tea leaves were cultivated in Burma in 2006-2007, of which nearly 70 percent produced green tea. Burmese people consume an average of 0.41 kg of tea per head annually.

Tea production in Burma takes place in the hilly regions of Shan, Kachin, Chin and Karen states, as well as in Sagaing and Mandalay divisions. Shan State is the main tea-growing region with a total sowed area of 67,616 hectares.