Global Tea Markets Relationships and Price Analysis in Developing Countries:modelling Tea Prices by

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The genesis of this study was a realization that most of the research on tea is mainly about how to improve yields and productivity with very little input on the marketing aspects. Through this funding better yielding varieties have been developed in the respective national research centres. The yields of tea have been increasing following farmers adoption of research recommendations leading to high production and persistent situation of oversupply on the international market caused by fierce competition among producing countries for market share.But it is the price of tea in the market that determines whether the farmers and other market participants will continue with in the tea farming business in the future periods.Generally speaking there has been more emphasis on improvement in production without considering marketing and more specifically the behavior of the tea markets. Tea takes about four to five years from planting for the bushes to reach economic harvesting levels; likewise the economic productivity of tea bushes takes over fifty years before the harvested yields start to decrease.At farm level, cultivation requires continued financing to pay for inputs and labour.This means that the farmers decision to plant tea is very crucial and he or she must weigh the cost and benefits before making any decision go into tea farming.Price of tea during planting up to the time of harvesting will not be static but will keep changing depending on the supply and demand, polices in place, global politics,shifts in tastes and preferences by consumers, substitutability to other beverages, weather and climate change, pests and diseases among many other factors.Before embarking on the study the author realized that frameworks that have been employed to study agricultural markets in developing have been seriously wanting in terms of the relationship between conclusions and results obtained.The fundamental weakness of much of the existing research on commodity price transmission in developing countries context where most of the tea is grown in the world is that they attempt to inference just a subset of relevant factors yet actual market relationships are hazy and complex.A close look at models that have been used to study agricultural markets indicates that there has been an attempt to tailor their analytical frameworks to the perfect competition model, yet the invisible hand theory or the perfect competition models in the Marshallian tradition assumptions underscored by Adam Smith in his studies hardly hold in developing countries.While tea is produced in several countries across the world, the status and health of the tea sector for many developing countries has major macro-economic implications in terms of economic development.In fact the increase in export earnings from 2006 to 2012 so far at the global level, is positively affecting rural incomes in all tea producing countries.Tea farming is a high fixed investment at production and processing levels, and requires large economies of scale in factory operations.Green leaf crop after plucking is also highly perishable and bulky and therefore a short-time span is required between harvesting and processing.
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