Assam's Agriculture and Irrigation Minister, Pijush Hazarika, opened farmer registration for small tea growers at two events in Biswanath district on July 3, letting growers claim a Farmer ID that unlocks government credit and fertilizer support.

This credential lands on the growers who actually supply an Assam blend. A small tea grower is anyone cultivating tea on a holding up to 10.12 hectares under the Tea Board of India's own definition, distinct from the colonial-era estates the region's name evokes, and that segment now supplies close to half of the state's tea by volume, up from about 40 percent in 2017.

The registration follows a June 26 order from Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's government that added tea and plantation-class land to the state's Farmers' Registry Portal for the first time, the Press Trust of India reported. "Today marks a historic day for the lakhs of small tea growers in Assam," Sarma said. Hazarika said in the same announcement that small growers "have strengthened the identity of Assam Tea through their hard work" for generations.

Until now, growers working tea land had no Farmer ID, the credential the state uses to route fertilizer supply, institutional loans and scheme benefits to registered cultivators of other crops. At the Biswanath launch, Hazarika said the registration would let small tea growers access "benefits from all government schemes" for the first time, the Sentinel Assam reported. Sonitpur Lok Sabha MP Ranjit Dutta and District Agriculture Officer Baneswar Bey also addressed growers at the event.

A Farmer ID is meant to open timely fertilizer access, institutional credit on better terms and a single digital record a grower can use across schemes, cutting out the informal moneylenders many smallholders have relied on. It follows a 2017 land-titling drive that gave most small growers formal deeds for the first time, without which they had been shut out of credit requiring proof of land ownership as collateral.

For a segment whose margins have swung from profit to outright loss within a single season, and whose land titles alone took the state the better part of four decades to sort out, a working Farmer ID is a small, concrete step toward steadier footing for the growers now responsible for close to half of what ends up in an Assam blend.

Sources: Sentinel Assam, "Assam Minister Pijush Hazarika Launches Farmer Registration For Small Tea Growers" (July 2026); Daily Excelsior (PTI), "Assam small tea growers to get Govt benefits with Farmer IDs" (June 27, 2026); Dainandin Barta, "অসমৰ ক্ষুদ্ৰ চাহ খেতিয়কৰ বাবে ডাঙৰ সুখবৰ" (Assamese, June 27, 2026).