Tests of Indian Tea Reveals 42% Failure Rate | Kenya Tea Growers Report Double-digit Increase | Kumaon Growers Break Ground on Community-Owned Factory

HEAR THE HEADLINES – Increased Food Safety Testing of Indian Tea Reveals 42% Failure Rate | Kenya Tea Growers Report Double-digit Increase in Volume | Kumaon Growers Break Ground on Their Community-Owned Factory

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| NEWSMAKER – Joydeep Phukan, Secretary of India’s Tea Research Association and the Principal Officer at the Tocklai Tea Research Center in Jorhat, Assam

| FEATURED – Coverage of the recently concluded 25th Session of the UN FAO Intergovernmental Group on Tea (IGG) continues this week as Managing Editor Arvinda Anantharaman debriefs Joydeep Phukan, Secretary of India’s Tea Research Association and the Principal Officer at the Tocklai Tea Research Center in Jorhat, Assam. They engage in a wide-ranging chat on the benefits of regenerative agriculture in combatting a changing climate, enhancing trade, elevating smallholders, and marketing healthy hydration to youth.

Dispelling Gloom and Doom - Joydeep Phukan, the principal officer and Secretary of TRA, was the driving force behind the events, talks about what he hopes attendees took away from the events."There is a lot of negativity in the industry regarding prices and overproduction. Last year, 2023, was a very bad year for the tea industry globally," says Phukan. In this context, hosting the 25th FAO Intergovernmental Group on Tea (IGG) session, preceded by a two-day conference celebrating 200 years of Assam tea, was challenging. "We closed at nearly 450 delegates. I feel like this was a big learning lesson for the industry." He cites a marketing proposal targeting youth. We decided to initiate a campaign called #TeaPower in terms of sports, fitness, and wellness. Youths read every social media message, but tea consumption in Gen Alpha is 4%. That is a very small percentage, which was a big takeaway from the FAO session. On the topic of regenerative agriculture, much can be learned from India's cotton industry. "Tocklai has been suggesting that after you have grown tea for the past 50, you should uproot and rehabilitate the soil for at least 18 months to 24 months. So you plant different grasses and plants and apply biochar so the soil is regenerated, and then after two years of soil rehabilitation, you are ready to go for another maybe 30-40 years of planting." We are not in a very doom and gloom situation this year. We have the production now, and it is just finding the markets. And we’re lucky to have a very, very strong domestic market which is almost a dropping nearly 1,200 million kilos of tea," he said.

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