Recognising the rising importance of small tea growers (STG) in the supply chain, tea estates in North India are testing a project called ‘Trinitea,’ which aims at providing support to the STG at the farm and market level.
A MoU was signed between the Indian Tea Association (ITA) the apex body of North Indian tea producers and Solidaridad for jointly implementing this project, which aims at providing support to STGs in the form of customised farm management as well as access to real time information on climate, soil and markets, a senior ITA official said.
Solidaridad is a network which works to promote sustainable production of 13 commodities across nine regions globally.
Supplementing output
The project is already being rolled out in select ITA-member tea gardens who supplement their output through the STG crop.
This comes close on the heels of the three MoUs signed between ITA and STG Associations in West Bengal and Assam. A long-term partnership between the formal traditional sector and the informal STG sector is necessary, Azam Monem, ITA’s outgoing chairman, had said, adding “this (the MoUs) would create better value and acceptability in the global and domestic market for teas produced across the value-chain encompassing both the sectors” he said.
The STG sector’s share in total Indian tea crop has been rising steadily and now constitutes 47% of the total production. Many large producers are sourcing green leaf from STG and in the absence of testing facilities, outsourced green leaf from multiple agents fail to comply with the permitted standards of pesticides and good farm practices.
“Although it is early to comment on the Trinitea initiative, we are welcoming this move,” Bijoy Chakraborty, president, Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Association, told The Hindu.
The project would help monitor green leaf quality, establish traceability mechanisms and set up vendor development for supply of farm inputs.
