A record of the Development of Tea Cooperatives in Nanyi Village, Wujiang Town

Although it has been more than a month since the autumn tea picking season, the refreshing aroma of new tea in Nanyi Village of Wujiang Town is still scattered in every corner of the village. According to Lin Yubao, a tea farmer in Nanyi Village, the village can have such an atmosphere thanks to the tea cooperative. "since the co-operative came into existence, tea farmers will no longer worry about the lack of tea-making skills or the obstruction of sales channels." The tea cooperative in the mouth of Master Lin was established in March 2008. At present, it has developed more than 100 members. It is the first tea professional cooperative established in Wujiang Town.

It is understood that up to now, the tea garden area operated by Nanyi Village has exceeded 800mu, the annual output of fresh tea has reached more than 20,000 jin, and the annual net output value has reached 3 million yuan. What kind of changes did the establishment of the cooperative bring to the tea farmers in Nanyi Village?

Bottleneck: there is little attention to the "rock bottom price" of tea.

Nanyi Village is located in Wujiang Town, northeast, is a hilly area, rich in mountain forest resources suitable for large-scale tea cultivation. Of the 540 households in the village, nearly 60% are engaged in tea-growing and tea-making activities.

However, the development model of self-production and self-marketing for a long time has been hindering the villagers' path to get rich. Lagging behind the level of tea garden management, backward tea processing skills have become a soft rib for development, and the price several times lower than the market almost serves as the only bargaining chip to attract tea merchants to come and buy. Not only that, tea farmers fight on their own, and the tea market is not smooth, and vicious competition often occurs in the process of management, which discourages the enthusiasm of tea farmers in growing and making tea.

It is understood that by the end of 2007, the problem of low tea quality and single sales channel exposed in Nanyi Village has become more and more serious. Since there is no unified organization to buy tea, tea merchants need to collect tea from door to door. "Tea merchants come and go, it is difficult to keep, and many people have accumulated unsalable tea in their homes." Gao Changmiao, secretary of the party branch of Nanyi Village and chairman of the tea cooperative, recalled.

Breakthrough: the establishment of tea cooperatives and the development of "holding groups"

At the beginning of 2008, under the initiative of the Nanyi Village Committee, the tea-making professionals of the village sat together to study the development countermeasures of tea. Gao Changmiao, a branch secretary of the village party, proposed the establishment of a tea cooperative at the meeting, which received the response of nearly a hundred tea farmers in the village, and the tea professional cooperative was officially established in March of the same year.

"group" to go to the market, cooperatives take the way of unified acceptance, unified purchase, unified price, unified consignment, household-by-household management, household-by-household picking, and signing agreements with large-scale tea processing enterprises for fixed-point supply. this not only saves the logistics costs in the middle, but also eliminates the worries of tea farmers. "in the past, we used to take the initiative to go out and do everything possible to find a market for tea, but now it is sold uniformly by the co-operative, so that we no longer have to worry about the marketing of tea. Moreover, the price per jin of tea is at least 20 yuan more than that of selling it ourselves." Lin Yubao, a tea farmer in Nanyi Village, said.

In addition, in view of the difference in the level of tea growers in Nanyi Village, the tea cooperative in Nanyi Village takes the form of "large households with small households" to set up mutual aid groups to organize tea farmers to study tea planting skills together to solve the technical problems in the process of tea production. Talking about the original idea, Gao Changmiao said: "single-family planting is risky, and it does not form a climate. Now most tea farmers in the village have joined the mutual-aid group. Those who do not know how to use medicine are helped, and those who do not know how to apply medicine are taught. Gradually formed a general climate, but also can save a certain amount of cost."

The establishment of the tea cooperative in Nanyi Village not only paves the way for tea farmers to get rich, but also provides them with a platform for learning. Since its establishment, the cooperative has organized members of tea farmers to participate in technical training every quarter, and tea experts from Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing Forestry University, District Agriculture and Forestry Bureau and other departments have been regularly invited to give lectures and guide tea production. During the spring tea picking season this year, the cooperative specially invited professional tea makers to come to Nanyi Village to guide tea farmers on the picking process, so as to change the uneven tea quality in Nanyi Village.

Future: to build an independent brand belonging to Nanyi Village

In recent years, the competitive pressure of the tea market is intensifying day by day, the new varieties emerge in endlessly, and the processing skills of the old varieties are also improving constantly. In this context, Nanyi Village Tea Cooperative began to explore how to further improve the quality of tea, so as to consolidate its market position and meet the needs of the high-end market. It is understood that freshly picked fresh tea can be sold for 36 yuan / kg on the market, but after a certain initial processing, the circulation price of tea in the secondary market can reach 100 yuan / kg or more. In the face of this readily accessible opportunity to create economic value, co-operatives certainly will not miss it.