STiR coffee and tea magazine

46 STiR coffee and tea | 2023 Issue 5 (October / November) By Dan Bolton, Tea Correspondent T he Tea Board of India was founded in 1954 during a peri- od when the nation was transitioning away from colonial legacies. The Board was instructed to promote cultiva- tion, processing, and domestic and foreign trade. Unfortunately, it was also saddled with enforcing regulations — lots of them. The Board's 156-page official manual of operations cites "rules" 99 times and "regulations" 22 times. The words "con- trol," "controlled," and "controlling" appear 107 times. In contrast, the manual mentions trade fairs and "tea pro- motion" just twice — and then only to warn staff from travel- ing to foreign lands. Advertising is not discussed. There are no provisions to advance the work done by smallholders. Instead, there was until recently a rule that growers could not obtain a permit until they submitted a soil analysis proving that tea could thrive on "land that is not too small for economic plantations." Some of the mandated oversight is needed and is appropriate to assign to a tea board. For example, monitoring production to- tals, acres under tea, aging stock, labor productivity. Or compiling statistics on total transactions and export destinations. But many of the Board's tasks should instead be done by other agencies. Scrutiny Now Tea Board India has come under systematic scrutiny. In August, India's Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) sub- mitted a 176-page audit that is critical of the Board for failing to meet its regulatory mandate. The audit documents many failings, the most telling of which is that production declined during the five years under review (fiscal 2016–2021). Auditors estimate that 46% of land cultivated by large growers is no longer economically viable due to the aging of tea bushes. Rebooting Tea Board India The audit triggers a Parliamentary review. It's important that Parliament take action to reduce the Board's role as a regulator and instead reinforce its mission to encourage and develop the tea industry. Pivot Close oversight is out of sync with a competitive global tea market that rewards agility and innovation. The instruments of regulation — including operating permits, licenses, approvals, bans, codes of practice, and terms and conditions — discour- age innovation and improvement. It's better to step back and let tea producers adopt good agricultural and manufacturing practices as developed by the Tea Research Institute. Non- government organizations like Trustea, a domestic certifica- tion group, can promote safety and inspire growers to produce better-quality tea. To be more specific about improving the Board, here's what Parliament and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry should do: • Direct the Board to adopt a marketing strategy focused on growing global consumption of tea rather than traditional short- term sales targets. The Board should emphasize value rather than price. It should promote the distinctive taste of Indian tea in both commodity and premium grades. • Relinquish to Indian Customs and local law enforcement the task of limiting inferior imports and bringing an end to smuggling. The Board cannot enforce these rules effectively be- cause they lack the funding, personnel, and resources to do so. Let other agencies handle this, which could help create a real deterrent. • Assign the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) responsibility for lab tests and quality assurance in tea factories. Smallholders first The most important reform should be shifting the Board's fo- cus away from regulating minutiae. Let it work to inspire today's hundreds of thousands of small tea growers to take control of their destinies. Smallholders currently produce 52% of India's tea. This share will continue to increase, helping democratizing production. More of the revenues from tea need to reach growers. As rural entrepreneurs come to better understand how great tea is made, they will aggregate into communities, improve their prod- uct, and add more value themselves. Throughout the world, smallholders produce most of the tea. Yet their net earnings are only a tiny fraction of the product's retail price. To increase that share, farmers must learn to become rural entrepreneurs. The initial task is straightfor- ward: Improve tea quality by employing sustainable agricultural practices and efficient manufacturing. Small growers must come to understand, as entrepreneurs, that the money in tea isn't in the field or factory. It's the money to be earned by winning top prices at auction and profiting from direct sales. Growers will prosper by looking beyond their ev- eryday tasks in order to collectively learn how to grow revenue. India's Tea Board is uniquely positioned to lead the way. See: Audit Faults India Tea Regulators, page 17. Perspective

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