Current issues in the tea industry

Human rights are being breached

THIRST’s research has revealed that across the world, despite a plethora of human rights standards, laws, policies and conventions, and despite efforts by tea companies, governments, trade unions and NGOs, the human rights of tea plantation workers, smallholder tea farmers and their workers are often breached. Issues identified by THIRST include the following:

• Women across tea-growing regions experience economic and employment discrimination, sexual abuse and coercion and violation of maternity rights. Trade unions tend to be male-dominated so women’s voices often go unheard.
• The sector is characterised in multiple origins by very low incomes – often below international poverty lines – even when they meet legal minimum wage levels and are agreed through collective bargaining.
• Occupational health hazards such as musculoskeletal injuries from carrying heavy loads, spraying pesticides without the protective equipment, and exposure to tea dust in factories are common across the sector.
• Housing in many parts of the sector is dilapidated with toilets in poor condition or non-existent; many workers do not have access to safe drinking water, leading to risk of cholera and typhoid, while medical care is often rudimentary.
• Forced labour and child labour has been identified in the tea industries of multiple countries.
• Older people in tea growing regions are highly vulnerable to rights abuses, losing their homes and access to medical care on retirement.

There is a growing number of smallholder farmers in tea – the volume of tea they produce has outstripped plantation-grown tea in the global market. This means that there is an increased risk of child labour, of casual workers below the radar of labour regulation, of discrimination and gender-based violence going undetected.

Falling demand, quality and price?

Where tea was once an exotic luxury enjoyed by royalty and aristocracy, who paid royally for it, it has now become a cheap, mass-produced commodity. As workers demand that their right to living wages are met, production costs are rising and companies are turning towards mechanisation, which some fear will reduce the quality of tea further. The traditional markets for tea – Western Europe, particularly the UK – are shrinking, as the younger generation’s tastes move more towards coffee and other drinks.

This comes on top of decades of stagnation of the price of made tea, which is exacerbated by the fact that the amount of tea available in the global market (much of which is of a lower quality) outweighs the demand for it.

But there are also grounds for hope for the tea industry.

• There is a small but growing demand for specialty tea grown and made by artisans.
• Many argue that mechanical harvesters can produce good quality tea.
• There is a large and growing market for tea in the Middle East, Russia and Pakistan as well as in tea producing countries like India who historically had only grown it for export into the rest of the then British Empire.
• Younger people are increasingly being drawn towards tea because of its scientifically proven health benefits.
• New legislation in European countries as well as some tea producing countries are compelling companies that buy tea to take responsibility for the human rights of workers in their supply chains. THIRST exists to work with the industry and with civil society to help ensure that this happens.

Climate crisis impacts

The climate crisis is impacting on us all in different ways. Its impact on the tea industry is adding another enormous challenge to an already challenging environment. Extreme weather from hailstones to heatwaves are destroying valuable crops and depriving workers of the wages they would have earned plucking it. Changes in the climate of tea growing areas are bringing new pests into the crop, creating further havoc.

Tea production processes contribute to the climate crisis to some extent – through deforestation to plant tea, monocropping in vast tea plantations, and the use of firewood in tea processing factories. But the biggest climate impact in the life of a cup of tea is when you boil a kettle. Industrial nations are far bigger drivers of the climate crisis than the tea producing ones who are suffering its impacts.