tea industry in trouble

Ankit, I would recommend getting in touch with the United Farm Workers Union

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They are helping to get decent working conditions organized for plantation workers in many third world countries and are full of ideas for setting up working condition and wage standards. Personally, I was an activist for this union when it started and I know that agreements CAN be reached between the farmers and farm owners. It takes a good deal of grit, but it can be done. Shen

thank you shen.

i have shot off an e-mail to them. will keep you posted on the development.

regards ankit

Ankit

I think people tend to be generous about humanitarian aid, especially this year, things are so bad everywhere.

What troubles me is that there are two - in fact three distinct problems here: potential a humanitarian crisis in the making, potential overcapacity of the tea industry and possible mistreatment of workers (which is a worldwide third wolrd phenomena).

Our direct donation can only directly help in the first, but there is little we can do to the second and the third, except to leave to other more able people move things forward.

I am not an expert in any of these 3 areas, but India currently provides the lion share of the world tea consumption, and promoting a certain tea only moves the demand from one estate to another.

Certain tea garden like yours are already actively using the profit- sharing theme as the marketing tool, and rightly so, although it will be nice to know the details.

CTC teas are commodity. The reason it is not doing well is because the price is too low. If that is the case, it will be good to know why the price has collapsed.

If you know of any reliable charity organisation who is involved to provide humanitarian aid, please let us know. We will be keen to help.

Julian