Branded Meitan-grown tea raising rural income

Negotiating the hairpin curves on the mountainous Guizhou Plateau might make visitors dizzy long before they arrive at Hetaoba village.

But the three-hour drive from Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, ends with a feeling of serenity as vast tea fields fill the horizon.

Not only lush, green and scenic, the tea fields are now bringing wealth to locals.

Just a few years ago, it was a much different story.

The village in Meitan county was so impoverished its young women looked for marriage in other villages to escape, leaving the men residents with a bleak future alone.

The region was unsuitable for planting grain or growing fruit, but it turned out to be ideal for tea farming. Its climate and soil - and lack of pollution - give Meitan's raw tea a distinct quality, said Tian Weixiang, vice-head of the county's tea industrial association.

Raw tea must be then processed, he said, and those techniques also affect the tea's quality.

Because many tea-making experts fled to Meitan during the wars of the 1940s, the village had a legacy of expertise.

Despite the quality of its tea and knowledge of growers, the price for Meitan tea remained low because it lacked a well-regarded brand.

All that changed when the Meitan Tender Sprout brand was granted a geographical indication (GI).

Now every year large tea traders from Zhejiang and Anhui provinces - both well known for tea - flock to the small county, local officials said. Tea farmers' annual income has increased markedly, with the price for raw tea rising from 32 yuan (about $5) to 46 yuan per kilogram, according to Chen Tingming, chief of Hetaoba village.

Now more than half of the county's population is involved in tea farming.

As tea production increases, maintaining Meitan tea's quality and reputation while helping local farmers continue to increase income are priorities for county authorities.

Teng Zhaoyi, Party chief of the county committee, said authorities are planning to build a 200,000-square-meter trade complex to attract leading agricultural companies.

As well, local industry leaders such as Lanxin Tea Industry Co Ltd have signed long-term contracts with tea farmers, usually as futures.

"If future market prices go up, we will compensate farmers - in the case of the opposite, we will honor the contract at the price agreed on," said a representative of the company.

Making full use of GI to help improve the rural economy and increase income is a key part of Guizhou's trademark strategy, said Yang Zhengguo, director of the provincial administration of industry and commerce.

The authorities in Guizhou, a frontier economy with a large rural population, are exploring how to help with brand building in local agricultural products.

Due to the strategy, new trademarks in agriculture have surpassed 3,100 in the province over the past six years. Ten now have GI status.

China Daily

(China Daily 11/10/2010 page17)