In many countries a significant proportion of tea is produced by smallholder tea farmers who supply local processing factories. The level of support they receive from estates and cooperatives varies greatly between regions.
Many smallholders still struggle to achieve sustainable livelihoods from tea due to quality and productivity issues, and from a poor understanding of market requirements. Smallholders often find it particularly difficult to meet social and environmental standards. It is therefore important to find ways of supporting smallholders to manage these issues, in order to minimise the barriers to international supply chains.
About the project
To help Indonesian smallholders overcome these problems, ETP has entered into a three year partnership with the International Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) to work with 1,000 smallholder farmers in West Java and West Sumatra.
At the start of the project ETP and consultants from the Gambung Research Institute of Tea and Chinchona conducted a diagnostic assessment and identified a number of issues:
- Inferior leaf quality from poor agricultural practices, lack of technical knowledge and logistical challenges of getting leaf to factories in good time and condition
- Low productivity from old tea bushes, ‘patchy’ plots (that require infilling) and a lack of working capital for inputs (e.g. fertiliser, new tea bushes)
- Low level of farmer organisation and support
- Small farms (0.5 – 2 ha) that are often in remote locations
ETP is now working with a number of specialist partners to overcome these particular challenges.
Bush Management Demonstration plot
Under the guidance of a researcher from the Gambung Institute of Tea and Chinchona, a ¼ hectare demonstration plot is being used to educate one smallholder group about good practice farming. This includes information about micro-nutrients and the application of fertilisers, and improving tea bush management through better pruning and plucking cycles. Since the project commenced, what was once a ‘tired’ plot has now turned into a stand of tea bushes that will produce well in either a drought or the rainy season.
Nursery Project
In Sumatra, Dushy Perera, ETP’s Regional Manager for Sri Lanka is supporting the development of a tea nursery project. Dushy has prior experience of working in Indonesia and has considerable experience in these type of projects from his time as a tea estate manager in Sri Lanka. The nursery will supply smallholders with young tea bushes that can be used to replace older bushes or to increase the density of plots (by infilling the gaps) thereby improving overall productivity.
Quality enhancement workshops
ETP and its project partners, including the Indonesian Tea Board, Gambung Research Institute of Tea and Chinchona, and the Rainforest Alliance have also been running workshops to help the smallholders to improve their social and environmental standards. A local support organisation YPLK3 is working closely with ETP staff to make the training as practical and relevant to farmers as possible.
The smallholders have also had sessions with ETP staff and tea buyers from our member companies to help them understand the requirements of western markets.
Access to micro-finance
Since 2010 the Rabobank Foundation and the Ministry of Cooperatives have been providing support to the smallholder cooperatives to make them stronger and more efficient. The Rabobank Foundation is also providing smallholders with access to micro-finance credit so that they can pay for inputs such as fertilisers as and when they’re needed.
