World’s oldest tea research body comes out with sustainability standards for industry

The beleaguered tea industry got some hope on Wednesday, in the form of a set of standards for sustainability to tackle the serious impact of climate change.

The Tea Research Station, the world’s oldest tea research station situated at Tocklai in eastern Assam’s Jorhat district, launched Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standard for tea industry, which promises to contribute towards “a people and planet positive” tea industry by 2030.

Established in 1911, the Tocklai station is the research unit of the Tea Research Association (TRA).

“The GAP-GMP standard supports strategies which will contribute in improving overall farm practices, management systems and sustainability performance. TRA Tocklai believes that adoption of the best practices, indicated in the standard, would contribute towards a people and planet positive tea industry by 2030 with continuous improvements,” TRA secretary Joydeep Phukan said in a statement.

The GAP-GMP Standard, which will come into effect from January 2023, recognises the challenges faced by the tea industry due to climate change. It also prescribes climate-resilient practices to mitigate climate change impacts, improving resilience of the industry.

The standard recommends for maintaining healthy soils, conserving water and energy resources, avoiding deforestation and encouraging afforestation programmes, using climate-smart planting material, protecting natural ecosystems and biodiversities, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among others. “These would significantly contribute towards a climate-resilient tea industry,” the statement said.

A climate-dependent industry, tea has been seriously impacted in the past few years due to erratic rainfall, heat- and cold-wave, which are seen as climate change impacts.

Although the TRA standards are for the entire tea industry, Assam is likely to get maximum benefits given the fact that the state is the highest tea growing region in the world. With more than 800 big tea estates and 1.22 lakh small gardens (up to 25 acres), Assam contributes to more than 50 per cent of the country’s tea production.

According to the TRA statement, Phukan had mooted the idea of having a homegrown sustainability certification and suggested it to TRA’s council of management on June 29, 2022, which was unanimously accepted.

The GAP-GMP standard was launched during TRA’s 58th annual general meeting at Kolkata by the chairman of Tea Board of India Saurav Pahari, in the presence of various stakeholders of the industry. The standard is being supported by the Tea Board of India.

Prabhat Bezboruah, TRA chairman, stated that Tocklai should come out with climate-resilient tea clones after it has successfully sequenced the tea genome. This will go a long way in addressing the problems of drought and pest incidence.

At the annual general meeting, Nayantara Palchoudhuri, of Washabarie Tea Co & Mohorgung Gulma Tea Co., was elected as TRA’s new chairperson, while Atul Asthana, MD & CEO of Goodricke Group, was elected vice-chairman.