In early 2009, VECO carried out a chain analysis in Yen Lap district, Phu Tho province, 160 km northwest of Hanoi. The purpose was to get to know the tea chain in the region, and identify the bottlenecks, important chain actors, and potential partners to set up a chain development pilot.... In 2009 VECO decided to start a oneyear pilot project in Luong Son commune to explore whether chain interventions could lead to significant improvement of the chain. Between February and June 2012 VECO used Sensemaker methodology to measure the inclusion of the tea farmers in the chain, taking a close look at the cooperation between Phu Ha and the farmers. Sensemaker can be used as a method to reveal the world through the eyes of the beneficiaries of a programme or important actors linked to the programme.

Addressing the Human Cost of Assam Tea: An Agenda for Change to protect, respect and fulfil human rights on Assam tea plantations. For every kilogram of packaged Assam tea that is sold, tea brands and supermarkets take a sizable cut – up to 95% in some cases – while a marginal proportion – less than 5% ‒ remains on tea estates to pay workers. These inequalities in how the share of the end consumer price of tea is distributed contribute to poverty and suffering for the women and men on Assam tea estates, while driving a sustainability crisis for the wider tea industry in parts of India. Women bear the heaviest burden of systemic inequality, as they are concentrated in the lowest paid plucking roles and also shoulder most of the unpaid domestic care work. Meanwhile, plantation owners claim that laws making them responsible for housing, healthcare and education of workers and their dependents are challenging to implement – and therefore not effectively executed. Oxfam’s new research shows that the solutions lie in a fairer sharing of the end consumer price of tea, stronger gender policies and a review of plantation labour laws to ensure that women and men in Assam can lead dignified lives.

The report sets out the findings of the Human Rights Impact Assessment for the ALDI Nord Group of companies on the tea supply chain originating from the camellia sinensis plants in India, conducted by Ergon Associates. Although ALDI’s trade in tea is small compared to other product lines, the supply chain was selected as a focus for a human rights impact assessment due to the high risks previously identified and published by ALDI in 2023. India was identified as a particularly significant origin country, due to the comparatively high volumes sourced, and known human rights risks.

This report documents the status of closures and abandonment in the tea estates of West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and explore possible alternatives that have been proposed and addressed to such situations of closures and abandonment. Important stakeholders including trade unions and academics were involved in this exercise that was later followed by Regional Consultations on Alternatives to the Closed and Abandoned Tea Gardens of India both in Kerala and West Bengal this year [2007].

In this report, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (the Resource Centre) demonstrates use of its Tea Transparency Tracker (the Tracker) and data held by Open Supply Hub to link 70 allegations from 28 publicly available sources identified in 2022 at the supplier level to 16 tea buyers: Ahmad Tea, Bettys & Taylors, ekaterra, Goodricke, James Finlay, Jenier, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Plus, Ringtons, Starbucks Teavana, Tesco, Tetley, Twinings, Typhoo and Unilever. These include allegations from estates and factories in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda, concerning violations which can be grouped into three key categories: the right to freedom of association, health and safety infringements, and abuses related to wages, benefits and living standards...All 16 buyers linked to the allegations of abuse were asked general questions on their response to the allegations. Tea buyers were also asked specific questions depending on the nature of allegation(s) to which they were linked. Importantly, only one company (Plus) failed to respond to the Resource Centre’s request for information.

Certification initiatives with smallholder tea producers are expanding worldwide. Despite this, little is known about the operational set-up of the business models that will be able to drive implementation and adoption in the long term without donor funding... This study compared several business models that have been implemented for smallholder tea certification in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Kenya. The purpose of this comparison was to reflect on the business model innovation that is currently taking place within the Kenya Tea Development Agency.

Child labour in many forms and guises is again back among the tea garden workers. It was inevitable, given the low wages in tea (lowest in any organised industry, lower than even the agricultural minimum wage) and the thin line that most workers have to walk on between starvation and survival. Of course, there is a view that poverty is not the cause of child labour but the reverse is true. Child labour deprives generations of children of the education that can make them and their families climb out of poverty and the need for labouring at an early age. The present study shows the hard to climb language barrier in the tea garden educational system and the abject poverty that provides the etiology of child labour in the tea gardens. The present report seems to be a serious totalising effort to understand and change the predicament of the tea worker. This totalisation may be superseded, but will definitely remain a landmark. Young trade union activists, workers and intellectuals, worked on this report with diligence, sobriety and commitment. That is a sign of hope for the proletarian movement in India. I would like to recommend it to be used as a handbook by activists and all who are interested in the tea industry.

The briefing is the desk research conducted by THIRST to address the lack of information available on tea production, the conditions of workers and smallholder producers in East and South-East Asian countries. This research was conducted in May and June 20020 and included academic papers, news articles and other media resources, as well as reports and documents written by NGO's, international organizations and national government agencies. Because of the scarcity of information, the resources drawn on for the review include literature with a principal focus on tea worker conditions and rights as well as literature in which these issues are mentioned only briefly. The sections cover the recurring themes and most serious issues arising in the literature. It should be noted that the research revealed no information about the conditions of tea workers in Burma, Laos and Taiwan.

The Kanan Devan Hills Plantation Company (KDHP) is one of the main tea growers in Kerala. Owned by James Finlays and SOn until the mid-60's when it went into partnership with Tatas who took over completely in 1983. Tata's was seen as a benevolent employer who brought many improvements to workers' housing and conditions. In the early 2000's Tata's realized that the real money was in tea packaging and marketing rather than cultivation. As a result, they embarked on the revolutionary (for the tea sector) idea of turning into an employee-owned enterprise. Workers were given training and supported in getting bank loans to buy shares in the new company, in which Tata's retained a 28% share. The company practices what it describes as a participatory management system with 'Divisional Advisory Committees (DACs) set up to discuss issues relating to tea cultivation and management as well as social issues for workers. The DACs consist of workers as well as management. At least two of the labourers must be women. The company supports its workers with various perks under the Plantation Labour Act (PLA) and not only to supplement their income. Such arrangement appeared to work well until 2015, following an announcement that workers' annual bonuses would be 10% rather than the anticipated 20%. Thousands of women went on strike calling themselves 'Pempila Orumai' - meaning #women's unity'.

Tea estates tend to be in remote, rural areas and as such, there have been few reports of infections in those areas to date. However, measures to combat the pandemic is having serious social and economic impacts on tea companies and their workers. Concerns facing the tea industry currently and potentially in the aftermath of the pandemic include: - Loss of valuable crops-and wages - due to lockdown; - Inability to process tea due to factory closures; - Inability to sell tea due to closure of auction houses and reduced demand; - Inability to transport tea due to road, rail, air and sea restrictions, and ports closures; - Screening of returning migrant workers potentially carrying the virus; - How to manage the virus if it enters tea estates - insufficient access to clean water and healthcare facilities and overcrowded housing; - Long-term economic impacts of current financial hit;