Page last updated October 2024
Fairtrade tea
Fairtrade tea is sourced from different locations across the world, from warm and often mountainous, wet areas in countries like Kenya, India, Malawi and Sri Lanka.
Tea is produced on large plantations or estates and picked by employed workers. It is also grown on small plots of land by small-scale farmers who sell their freshly-plucked green leaf to estates or tea factories for processing into the dried tea we would recognise in the UK.
All these different regions have different contexts, and farmers and workers face varied challenges. Assam is a particularly unique landscape to work in.
Tea in the region of Assam
Assam is a remote region in northern India, where most tea is produced on large plantations or estates and is picked by employed workers.
Tea from Assam is prized for its strong, robust and distinctive flavours and forms an essential ingredient in tea blends sold by many UK retailers and brands.
The situation in Assam is complex;
- Many people face chronic poverty and challenging living and working conditions, with low cash wages. If you are a worker on a farm in Assam, it is unlikely there are any other employment options for you in the surrounding area.
- The area has seen increasing costs of production and low market prices.
- The concerns on estates can be interconnected with the geographical, political and social landscape with severe issues in areas like:
- gender-based violence,
- child labour,
- and discrimination.
- There remains a colonial legacy influence on the area since the British government deforested land and set up tea plantations with unequal power structures in the mid-19th century.
- Ever more erratic climates are also increasing pressure on the region.
Fairtrade started working with producers in Assam more than 20 years ago and we remain committed to working with producers to improve the lives and living conditions for workers.
If you came to this page from the web address on your pack of tea then it means:
- Some of the tea in that pack is Fairtrade certified in the usual way following Fairtrade Standards (tea producers, factories and supply chains being audited by an independent certification body called FLOCERT, and with producer organisations earning at least Fairtrade Minimum Prices and Fairtrade Premium for their tea for example). At least 20 percent of tea in this packet has been sourced in this way.
- Some of the tea has been sourced under a new Fairtrade approach in the Assam region to continue supporting tea workers at estates that currently do not hold Fairtrade certification.
This initiative has been co-designed by The Fairtrade Foundation in the UK, the Fairtrade Network of Asia and Pacific Producers (NAPP) Producer Network, tea management on estates in Assam, independent experts, and some UK retailers and their suppliers to address specific challenges in the region with the aim of long-term improvement to tea worker livelihoods.
Want to learn more about Mass Balance?
Fairtrade International explain about traceability of products in Fairtrade supply chains.
The Fairtrade Assam Approach
At Fairtrade we require compliance to a rigorous set of standards containing social, economic and environmental criteria.
Our Fairtrade Standards include requirements on workers’ rights, the Fairtrade Minimum Price and the Fairtrade Premium to support farmers and workers.
However, estates holding Fairtrade certification in India sell only a small percentage (around 10 percent) of their tea on Fairtrade terms which, when combined with the other systemic challenges in Assam, means that the income to the estate is far too low.
With low incomes, few producers are able to meet and maintain compliance with the Fairtrade Standards.
Furthermore, only around one percent of the 800 estates in Assam hold a Fairtrade certification.
What is the Fairtrade Assam Approach?
This is a Fairtrade approach tailored specifically to the challenges for certain estates in Assam.
Its fundamental principles focus on:
- Supporting tea workers and estates while they go through a journey of continuous improvement towards compliance with the Fairtrade Standards.
- Tea estates will need to complete extra reporting – more than usually required through the Fairtrade Standards – demonstrating that they are incrementally closing gaps to compliance and investing in improvements that benefit workers.
- The Approach overall means more transparency between tea estates and UK retailers, and consequently a stronger and more open partnership working towards change together.
- The Approach also prioritises the improvement of monitoring and record-keeping systems, as part of a due diligence approach so that risks can be identified, mitigated and remediated effectively.
We want to recognise the challenges facing workers in the region of Assam and for those people to see lasting improvements, which is why we are continuing to work in the region. We are actively learning from this tailored Approach alongside UK retailers so that we can support more producers to meet the Fairtrade Standards, driving positive impact for more workers.