by Azera Parveen Rahman Assam’s tea growers who are dealing with high production costs and low profit margins have turned to growing the ‘perfume tree’, agarwood for financial viability. Agarwood, native to Assam and parts of northeast India, is critically endangered (IUCN). The Assam government has announced incentives encouraging tea growers to raise agarwood boundary plantations. While this would draw economic benefits, there is scepticism that agarwood would hamper tea by lowering its productivity. Assam’s tea growers are battling many challenges — high production costs, low profit margin, labour problems, and of late, coal shortage. Amid all this, they have found a window of opportunity, the critically endangered agarwood tree, that promises a symbiotic relationship in which they can both benefit from each other. Agarwood, or Aquilaria malaccensis , is native to Assam and parts of northeast India. Although its use is varied — as an aromatic, medicine, and for rel...
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