AgNext has successfully deployed TRAGNEXT to improve tea quality, suggest fair pricing for small tea growers and the industry alike. The agritech startup is also looking to boost India as a global leader in quality tea suitable for global markets and exports.
Bijoy Gopal Chakroborty, President-Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (CISTA) observed that AgNext has found favor with the growers and needs to be expanded. “There is a need to digitize the tea industry in a big way so that it becomes a tech-savvy industry in the future,” he said. “We have witnessed small tea growers becoming tech savvy and smart. With the technological advancements, we aim to take the quality produce of STGs to international export markets.” Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO AgNext, said the tea industry is at the cusp of transforming itself and it would be facilitated by unlocking AI and Data-Driven technologies. Prabhat K Bezboruah said since nearly 50 per cent of the tea industry is dominated by the small tea growers and bought leaf factories, quality plays a major role in determining prices. He believes TRAGNEXT is a disruptive technology which is coming into action. “Indian tea industry hasn’t seen any transformation in the last 40 years in the way fine leaves are counted. The use of this technology will change the way tea businesses operate, bring a fair pricing model and boost the exports.”
TRAGNEXT is the first of its kind solution that automatically determines the fine leaf count without human intervention, removing subjectivity, reducing the process to seconds, and improving overall accuracy. The initial deployments have been done in tea estates of prestigious clients like Goodricke, Rossell Tea and Bokahola Tea. The Tea Board of India has installed two machines in West Bengal and one in Assam.
The Indian Tea Industry has witnessed a paradigm shift in the production share among small tea growers. The share of Small Tea Growers (STG), in 2018 production, was 49.28 per cent and Big Tea Growers (BTG) 50.72 per cent. Of the total tea production, 159.7m kg in August 2020, STG accounted for 79.9m kg beating the total output of big tea planters. There are about 2.5 lakh STG dominating 11 states of India. Sri Lanka and Kenya heavily depend on small holders for tea exports, for which quality is a key factor and their small growers have made a mark with acceptable quality and competitive prices. India is the second largest producer for tea. It produces 1,339.70 million kgs, while it stands fourth in terms of export after Kenya, China and Sri Lanka which produce about 1/4th of what India produces. Assam and West Bengal are the largest producers of tea in India, with Assam accounting for 52 per cent of the country’s tea. India’s produce is consumed locally and is one of the world’s largest consumers of tea with about three fourths of the country’s total produce consumed locally.
