Emma Mullins - Tea Supply Chain Manager, Fairtrade Foundation
Hopefully you have linked to this blog from our #60days#60partners campaign : Malawi blog - if not there is some link text below or you can hop over and read it here >>
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Extract from#60days#60partners campaign : Malawi Malawian tea is a key origin in many British blends. Known to blenders for its brisk flavour and quick colouring the lack of transparency in cheaper commodity teas means that sadly most of us are ignorant of the contribution of it makes to our daily cup. Behind these tea leaves that we enjoy is one of the poorest countries in the world, its economy heavily reliant on tea export, and the livelihood of its often marginalized tea communities is at the mercy of a multitude of factors, not least the changing global climate.
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At Comins we don’t deal in bulk commodity teas – we predominantly deal with small gardens that produce high-quality orthodox teas. We only trade directly, and in Malawi we deal only with Satemwa whose story and positive contribution to the Malawian tea landscape you can read below. However given the importance of Malawian Tea in the commodity market and the landscape against which this is produced it seems appropriate to raise the issues that organizations like Fairtrade are trying to tackle here and in other tea markets facing similar challenges.
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At Comins we believe that to build a fair and sustainable future for the tea industry and the millions who depend on it those involved in the tea industry should aim to understand each others’ work, try to find ways to collaborate and ultimately work towards building a set of shared values in the way tea is sourced, purchased and sold. You can read more about this in Tales of the Tea Trade but in addition Emma Mullins, [Tea Supply Chain Manager, Fair trade Foundation], who contributed to Tales of the Tea Trade has kindly written this insightful blog Perspectives on Fair Trade to accompany this part of our #60days#60partners campaign. Thanks Emma!
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'This year marks 25 years since the first Fairtrade tea hit the UK market. Back in 1994 I was in primary school, too small to be drinking tea but old enough to understand the simple principle of fairness. From a young age, we all understand that it is unfair for people to toil away for a pittance. It isn’t fair that despite working all hours, they do not earn enough money to support themselves, or their families. It isn’t fair that companies make billions in profits when people at the bottom of their supply chains are living in poverty. Fundamentally, people should be able to make enough money to ensure they and their children can live securely, without the fear of not being able to meet their basic needs.
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This year marks 25 years since the first Fairtrade tea hit the UK market. Back in 1994 I was in primary school, too small to be drinking tea but old enough to understand the simple principle of fairness. From a young age, we all understand that it is unfair for people to toil away for a pittance. It isn’t fair that despite working all hours, they do not earn enough money to support themselves, or their families. It isn’t fair that companies make billions in profits when people at the bottom of their supply chains are living in poverty. Fundamentally, people should be able to make enough money to ensure they and their children can live securely, without the fear of not being able to meet their basic needs
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I know that trade isn’t as simple as that. But that doesn’t mean we should stop striving for fairness. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight for change. And it certainly doesn’t mean it is right for people to be short changed for their work.
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At its simplest, I see Fairtrade as striving for social and economic justice. These are the principles that first attracted me to working at Fairtrade. It’s fair to say that Fairtrade hasn’t solved all the complex challenges in global supply chains but bit-by-bit, Fairtrade is contributing to positive change for individual farmers, workers and their families.
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Fairtrade works with around 350,000 tea farmers and workers across Africa and Asia. In Africa, Fairtrade works mostly with tea co-operatives representing smallholder farmers who individually own small plots of land and earn an income through selling their tea. Most Fairtrade tea that comes from Asia is sourced from plantations in India, where workers are live and work. Here, workers don’t own plots of land but make earn their money through a daily wage.
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Two of Fairtrade’s core components are the Fairtrade Minimum Price and the Fairtrade Premium, both crucial in securing economic justice for farmers and workers. When a Fairtrade buyer sources tea from a Fairtrade producer organisation, the lowest possible price they can pay per kilogram of tea is the Fairtrade Minimum Price. When the market price is higher than the Fairtrade Minimum Price, the trader must pay the market price. Buyers also required to pay the Fairtrade Premium. This is an extra bit of money that goes directly from the buyers to the co-operatives or the workers on plantations, who invest this into their businesses or local communities. Each Fairtrade producer organisation decides democratically, by committee, how to invest the Premium. Fairtrade Premium is more than the value generated per kilogram of tea sold, it is a connection between the producers and consumers who grow and drink the tea.
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In recent years, sales of Fairtrade tea have generated around £4 million of Fairtrade Premium a year to the farmers and workers within Fairtrade producer organisations. This has been invested in a whole host of projects. For example, farmers belonging to Sukambizi (an organization of small-scale tea producers in the Mount Mulanje area of southern Malawi) have invested their Fairtrade Premium in infrastructure to improve market access. They have used Fairtrade Premium to construct a bridge to connect inaccessible villages with other villages and markets, and bought vehicles to transport produce. This has greatly improved their ability to process their green leaf tea quickly and efficiently. Almost 5,000 residents in 45 hard-to-reach villages benefitted as a result.
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Unfortunately, some Fairtrade tea producers sell a small amount of their product on Fairtrade terms (only 5% of production, on average). Meaning for the remaining 95%, producers might sell below the Fairtrade Minimum Price, and they do not receive the additional benefits of Fairtrade Premium. It is important that more businesses source and sell on Fairtrade terms, in order to increase sales and support for producers, to ensure they are able to benefit from the investments they make by meeting Fairtrade Standards.
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The best thing about my job is meeting the huge variety of people who work in the tea industry, particularly the passionate farmers and workers. Hundreds of people are involved in the production of one cup of tea. And what unites them all, in my experience, is a shared pride in the quality and the taste of their tea. As a consumer, I want my cup of tea to taste great and I want it to be high quality. For me, this goes beyond my taste buds, a cuppa only tastes good when I know the people behind it have been treated fairly, and are getting a decent deal for their hard work.
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Over the years I have met many inspirational farmers and workers. Take Patrick - who belongs to a co-operative in Kenya - where they have used Fairtrade Premium to build classrooms, fund educational bursaries, build a dispensary, and funded environmental management and climate resilience projects. Or Sudha - who works on a plantation in Tamil Nadu, India – who have invested some of their Fairtrade Premium in household equipment such as a gas stove, a refrigerator and a rechargeable light. This equipment helps save Sudha valuable time and money. For example, she can now store food in the refrigerator and doesn’t have to make an expensive trip to market each day.
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People like Patrick and Sudha, who grow our tea, are facing new and complex challenges each year. If the people who grow our tea - and the industry that has been built from their hard work - are to thrive in the future, the tea industry must be able to adapt and more value must transfer back to producers. Growing tea is becoming more expensive each year but market prices aren’t increasing to support this. On top of this, changing weather patterns are having a huge impact on the quantity and quality of tea grown and are rapidly destroying livelihoods – the recent droughts in Kenya or floods in Malawi show the devastating impact climate change is having on the lives of agricultural farmers and workers. At the market side, fewer cups of tea are drunk each year as consumers’ habits change.
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We don’t know what the next 25 years have in store for the tea industry, but we must continue to strive for justice and fairness, and ensure that tea producers are placed front and centre'
