File photo of tea garden workers at a tea plantation Syed Zakir Hossain/ Dhaka TribuneWorkers living well by working in tea gardens even amid the Covid-19 pandemicThe rapidly boosting “small-scale gardening-basis” tea cultivation has created jobs for more than 25,000 rural people, including 15,000 women, in five northern districts of the Kartoa Valley ecological zone. Talking to BSS, President of Bangladesh Small Tea Garden Owners’ Association Amirul Haque Khokan said small-scale gardening-basis tea farming has ushered in a new hope to change the fortune of local farmers in these northern districts. Also Read - Tea cultivation to be widened on slopes of Mymensingh Garo hillsWith continuous expansion of tea cultivation on “small-scale gardening-basis”, more jobs are being created every year for thousands of tea workers, mostly women, in the valley. “The small-scale gardening-basis tea farming continues expanding since the launch of the ‘Expansion of Small Holding Tea Cultivation in Northern Bangladesh Project’ in 2015 to bring more 500 hectares of land under tea farming by 2020,” Mamun added. Workers living well by working in tea gardens even amid the pandemicLike other tea growers, Shahinur Rahman of Buraburi village in Tetulia upazila of Panchagarh said he started “small-scale gardening-basis” tea cultivation on his plain land in 2016.

Source: Dhaka Tribune December 11, 2020 12:22 UTC