Small Tea Growers’ Sustainability Platform (STGSP) has been launched in India by IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative to work towards improving livelihoods for small tea growers’ in the country in a collaborative manner. STGSP brings together stakeholders in the industry – the government, civil society organizations, private sector, non-government organizations, small tea growers, and local communities – to work jointly towards transforming the tea value chain to support a decent standard of living for the Small Tea Growers.
So far, the platform has been joined by organizations including the Tea Board of India; Amalgamated Plantations; Ethical Tea Partnership; Small Tea Grower Associations in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu; Vadham Tea; Department of Agriculture, Golaghat; Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Jorhat, Bosco Tea; and Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat.
During one of the Platform meetings, Dr. N. Sundardevan Nanjiah, retired IAS officer and chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu stated that there is a disjoint between the growers and processors and therefore there is a need for mechanism to ensure that both the producers and the processors are equally benefitted.
The platform will adopt different approaches, including a market-driven approach to work with the STGs to increase their farm productivity, income diversification and enhancement; and thereby close their living income gap by 20 per cent, while also reducing their environmental footprint by 20 per cent.