☕ Your Hot Cuppa Tea in Danger?
India’s tea production is facing a lot of difficulties, and on this International Tea Day we’re here to shine a light on this topic.
Tea is not a drink, it is an emotion.
No matter how many Starbucks open in India and no matter how many new beverages come up, tea will remain India’s favourite drink.
Chai ki jagah koi nahi le sakta.
Don’t believe us? Look at the numbers:
While Indians drink ~16.6 cups of coffee per year, they drink 176.6 cups of tea.
So, this International Tea Day, we thought we should take a look into India’s tea production.
🍵 India’s Tea Problems
India is the second-largest producer of tea in the world.
Despite this, our exports are pretty limited.
Kenya, which is the third-largest producer of tea, exported around 323 million kgs of tea in just 7 months, while India exported only 210 million kgs
In fact, India’s tea exports have been declining steadily.
And it's not because we Indians are drinking up all the tea we produce.
It’s because the tea industry is plagued with a lot of problems.
Low wages for back-breaking work and Covid shutdowns caused many labourers to exit the tea industry, leaving plantations with a worker shortage.
Plus, the perpetual lack of electricity has also caused a lot of problems for this sector.
Not to mention the rising pollution fees.
Wait, what?
Yes, tea processing plants produce a lot of waste that can contaminate the air, water and soil in that region.
This is why these plants are charged pollution control fees, which have increased over the years.
All of this, plus the ancient laws that govern the entire tea industry are leading to a gradual decline in tea production.
These ancient laws require that every tea plantation owner gets permission from the government before planting tea.
Not just that, but how much tea the farmers could export was also decided by the government. It can also set a ceiling price for tea sales.
Plus, if a tea farm was shut for over three months, the government could take it over and run it without investigation.
Worst of all, these farmers all had to pay a cess to promote tea and boost international tea-drinking.
But change is coming in this space in the form of a new Tea Bill.
It proposes repealing all of these ancient and restrictive laws in favour of new ones that promote innovation and exports in this sector.
It will focus especially on small farmers, those with less than 10 hectares of land, by training them and helping them adopt new technology, which can increase production.
All of this is set to increase the ease of doing the tea business and boost yields again.
However, many farmers and labour unions think differently.
You see, despite these strict laws a lot of unregulated and unlicensed farms exist.
Plus, many workers claim that if the government stops taking control of abandoned or poorly managed farms, a lot of farmland will go to waste.
In fact, many farmers think this is a ploy to indirectly take control of agricultural land and use it for other commercial purposes.
Seems far-fetched?
Well, the government recently uprooted 3 million tea plants in Assam to get land for building an airport.
The move has impacted over 2,000 workers and many more could be at risk once the law is repealed.
Also no matter how strict the laws were, they were somewhat necessary to regulate the industry.
For instance, regular inspections made sure that these plantations were growing quality tea crops.
But a lack of regulation could lead to a lot of plantations growing substandard tea that is cheaper to produce.
This could further harm our exports.
Moreover, the new law doesn’t really solve the actual problems plaguing the industry.
To solve them, the government needs to ensure a proper power supply to tea processing factories, a good minimum wage for workers, and provide more subsidies to the industry for transportation and other costs.
However, even if the government does bring in these new reforms, the tea industry will still be in trouble.
Because it is facing a problem that laws and reforms cannot solve: Climate Change.
😲 The End of Tea?
Yes, climate change is now threatening your shaam ki chai.
Due to droughts, unseasonal rains and ever-increasing temperatures, the delicate tea crop is at a major risk (P.S. if you are a coffee drinker, don’t think climate change will spare your favourite drink).
Climate change is decreasing the yield of tea crops by 110 kgs/hectare each year.
If this continues, some species of tea could even go extinct.
What’s the solution?
Umm, solving climate change.
But just in case we don’t manage to do that before it is too late for the tea crops, scientists are developing tea crops that are resistant to climate change.
Fingers crossed that this experiment works out!
⚡ In a line: Be thankful for that cup of tea that you’re having today, because soon it may get more expensive, or worse unavailable due to problems like labour shortage and climate change.
💡 Quick question: Do you think the government’s measures will actually make a difference?
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