Ep 196 | Tariff Response Uncertain | Kenya Task Force to Eliminate Tea Surplus | COP29 Agrees to $300 Billion for Climate Mitigation

Tariff Uncertainty Troubles Tea Industry | Kenya Appoints Task Force to Eliminate Tea Surplus | Developed Nations Pledge $300 Billion for Climate Mitigation

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| GUEST – Abhijeet Hazarika, Founder T Sigma Consultancy

PLUS | Frugal Innovation on the Farm

Capital-intensive advances in agricultural technology—ag-tech—are altering the efficiency and economics of cultivation. However, unlike commodity food crops, tea remains stubbornly labor-intensive. Tea plants are long-lived and require extensive infrastructure, including drainage improvements, flood protection, terracing, and planting shade trees. Fieldwork involves heavy fertilizer use, four-year pruning cycles, uprooting old stock, and maintaining extensive paths and access roads. Harvest rounds yielding 50 or fewer kilos of leaf per worker occur every eight to ten days during much of the year.

Abhijeet Hazarika, the former Head of Tea Process Innovation at Tata Global Beverages, explains that because every aspect of tea production is labor-intensive, tea is on the threshold of transformation, as mechanization and automation demonstrate. Since capital is limited and the return on investment is not substantial, Hazarika has made himself a champion of frugal innovation.

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