FINDING STRENGTH IN THE COLLECTIVE:
Organizing tea growers in India
The lush green fields of Tapan Mandal’s small tea farm in West Bengal, India, may paint a picture of prosperity, but his journey has not been an easy one. Under the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme, Solidaridad is supporting small tea growers, like Tapan, to organize themselves into collectives and strengthen existing collectives.
“United, we are stronger.”
As part of a farmer collective, Tapan is able to buy inputs for his farm at a lower cost, and supply tea leaf directly to the factory, which earns him a fairer price for his high-quality product. Farmer collectives are an important tool that can significantly improve the position of smallholders in the value chain, provide access to crucial services and inputs, and increase their negotiating power for better prices and buying terms.
Hand-in-hand: The transformative journey of a farmer and a collective
Small tea growers account for more than 50 percent of India’s tea production. Despite the country being the second-largest producer of tea in the world, small growers struggle with numerous challenges that directly affect their livelihoods.
Tapan took up tea farming in 2002 after a spell of unemployment following his graduation. The small tea farm in the village of Purba Harmati, in the Maynaguri municipal division of West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, paints a picture of a lush, verdant landscape with Tapan and workers busily tending to the tea trees.
“I inherited this farm from my father, and it means a lot to me, but I won’t lie—it has also been a constant source of stress for me.”
Tapan and his family of seven largely depend on activities on their nearly three-and-a-half hectare farm for a livelihood. However, the challenges Tapan faced were manifold and severe.
“Prices of chemicals and fertilizers skyrocketed [over the years],” Tapan says. “And I used to sell my leaves to middlemen who then sold them to factories. But I never knew where my leaves ended up. I could never negotiate for a fair price, which troubled me.”
Beyond that, labor shortages, pest attacks, and the effects of climate change complicated life on the farm.
Joining the Jai Jalpesh Self-Help Group, a local collective of small farmers in his district, changed his perspective dramatically.
“We, as a group, can buy inputs in bulk at lower prices, and we also have access to loans now. For example, I used a loan to install a modern irrigation system. It has made a big difference.”
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The bulk buying of inputs through the collective, along with adoption of good agricultural practices, reduced Tapan’s spending on fertilizers and chemicals by 18 percent in 2024. More importantly, the collective helped Tapan erase his dependence on middlemen. The collective set up the Jai Jalpesh tea factory in 2013 with the help of the Tea Board of India.
“No more middlemen. We now supply leaves directly to the factory."
Since 2019, Solidaridad has supported the transformative journeys of the Jai Jalpesh group and farmers such as Tapan with a two-pronged approach:
- Organizing tea growers based on their production capacities and proximity to each other to link them to the nearest factory within a radius of 1 to 5 kilometres. This has helped local farmers reduce transportation time and costs, and has enabled them to focus on producing a consistent supply of good-quality leaves.
- Introducing traceability tools via tea factories to bring transparency and traceability to their supply chains, which can contribute to fairer prices for the farmers.
“We know what kind of leaves a grower gives. Those who provide high-quality leaves get better prices,” says Bangshidhar Roy, tea grower and executive member, Jai Jalpesh Factory. The approach has helped the Jai Jalpesh collective grow to 523 members.
- On an average, farmers associated with Jai Jalpesh have been able to reduce their expenditure on fertilizers and chemicals from ₹34,760 (€388.88) per hectare in 2019 to ₹22,840 (€252.74) in 2024. The average yield of these farmers has consistently stayed above 3,800 kg per hectare in 2024—a 20–25 percent increase from 2019.
- With shorter and traceable supply chains, Jai Jalpesh factory is also able to procure and sell high-quality leaves to the market. As a result, the average sale price of made tea (per kilogram) supplied from the factory rose from ₹122.9 (€1.35) in 2019 to ₹173.35 (€1.90) in 2024 —a 41 percent jump. The growers, in turn, have been able to negotiate a better price from the factory.
A GROWING COLLECTIVE FOOTPRINT ACROSS INDIA
Efforts to organize farmers across India, through the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme, are being carried out at an impressive scale. Solidaridad collaborates closely with smallholder organizations by forming and/or supporting collectives that empower farmers through shared resources and increased bargaining power. This approach enhances their access to subsidies, farm equipment, and market opportunities, enhancing overall resilience and income potential.
Seven associations, including two women collectives, representing 110,000 tea growers, are expanding their operations in India. More than 10,000 women are participating in the programme.
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The case for influence
“Despite all the benefits, there are some problems that are too big for us to handle by ourselves. That is why our groups join larger associations, such as the one run by Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty,” says Tapan.
Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty, a tea farmer himself, is the President of the Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Associations (CISTA), a body that currently represents 229,526 small tea growers in India, and partners with Solidaridad under the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme.
Associations like CISTA can provide collective members with access to enhanced farming knowledge, and give them a greater say influencing the government policy and negotiations with other stakeholders.
"When collectives inform us about their problems, we meet with the association and come up with a concrete solution."
“We then send it as a recommendation to the government and even present this internationally through the Asia Tea Alliance [a confederation of tea organizations from six leading tea-producing and consuming countries in Asia, convened by Solidaridad].”
“For instance, due to changes in climatic conditions, pest attacks are becoming more common, leading to huge financial losses. So, one of the many recommendations we have submitted is crop insurance, which is a safety net,” Bijoy adds.
Solidaridad has partnered with CISTA to produce comprehensive policy recommendations for tea growers and submitted it to the Government of India for adoption. Acting on these recommendations, the Government of India has directed the Tea Board of India to review the price-sharing formula and create an implementation plan to ensure fair price distribution to farmers.
To address the opacity of existing tea supply chains, the government is also taking steps to regulate leaf agents and intermediaries—the middlemen between unorganized tea growers and factories. The implementation of traceability has helped address this issue to an extent, and has ensured proper training of small farmers so that they can supply high-quality leaves and earn better prices.
CISTA has also requested the inclusion of small tea growers in various schemes—ranging from crop protection to income support—that can make small tea growers more resilient to market shocks and improve the production ecosystem.
"By joining hands, we can together tackle bigger problems such as government policies and policy regulations."
“By the end of 2025, the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme aims to foster a more inclusive, fair, and sustainable tea sector,” says Ramanand Tiwari, General Manager – Programme Systems and Coordination, Solidaridad Asia. “To ensure lasting benefits, Solidaridad strengthens the capacities of small tea grower associations, supports the formation of grower collectives, and advocates for policy reforms.”
Tapan is optimistic about the future.
“I hope the government will soon put into action the recommendations Solidaridad and CISTA have worked on. Together, we have achieved a lot more than we ever could have, alone.”
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