Historic Sustainability - Tea in India - Essay Example

Historic sustainability By affiliation Department Tea in India Executive summary The Indian tea sector is facing a good number of challenges with reference to the environmental sustainability. The tea sector has remained a great employer in India. Additionally, it is a critical foreign exchange earner. More than two million people in India rely on tea in their livelihood. As aforementioned, there is a need to ensure that there is a great need to ensure that the sector is suitable. Sustainability ought to be incorporated in all phases of tea production, from plantation, pruning, harvesting, processing and transportation. The practise should gain momentum in all tea producing zones, with the relevant bodies coming up with policies to dictate the same. It is worth noting that the prices of tea in the world market is falling drastically day by day, which have had nasty implications not only to the producers but also to the workers. All stakeholders need to join hands in unison and address the issue finally. Key words: sustainability, stakeholders, occupation hazards, habitat conversion, deforestation Overview of the topic The silk caravans, who were the traders whose movement connected trade affairs between Orient and Europe, first set in the introduction of tea in India. The inauguration of tea as a major drink has been a milestone in not only the economic development of India but also worldwide countries. Essentially, tea has become a core part of majority of people’s daily lives. History shows that the current tea bushes did grow as wild vegetation in India. The natives’ settlers in India had a tendency of utilizing it in form of vegetables. It was a popular component of a locally made soup. However, the European traders brought up a historical milestone in the tea industry, when they reported of the great refreshment they took on their way past India during their trade affairs. The British traders did regards it as a drug that could stimulate their mind upon consumption. Sustainability is critical in ensuring that tea production in India is maintained while at the same time ensuring environmental maintenance Tea consumption has recorded an impressive evolution over time. This is an indicator of its crucial importance as a world’s second consumed drink. In India, tea remains the leading drink. It is available almost everywhere and all the times. Indian tea is named according to the region it emanates from (Hicks, 2009, pg. 253). Having been in the market for 172 years, Indian tea remains detrimental to the economy of the country. The industry is the backbone of the economy, employing millions of its citizens in diverse fields and bringing up an impressive foreign exchange count. The core tea growing regions in India are the highlands located in Eastern and Southern states. Its contribution to the Gross Domestic product is renowned. Its exports does account for 31% of the global tea production (Lutgendorf, 2012, pg. 14). The last 20 years have seen tea sector in India stabilize, gaining popularity in the world markets despite stiff competition from other countries. India remains both the largest consumer and producer of tea. 85% of its population consume tea. The country also account for at least 27% of the tea produced worldwide. Its exports account to 13% of the tea exported worldwide. It is worth noting that India produces some of the most cerebrated varieties of tea in the world, such as Darjeeling (Yong, 2007, pg. 1759). Tea industry is quite large. With at least 1700 manufactures, 200 exporters and 10 auction centres, the sector has created great job opportunities for the Indians. The variety of opportunities may range from tea tasting, tea marketing, research work, management of plantations and factories, consultation among others. One can act as a supervisor in a factory or a farm during the plucking, processing or packing session. A person with basic education can get a job opportunity in the tea sector, since a larger part of the tasks necessitates one to have technical skills. However, some opportunities requires specialized education. With the diverse advantages, the tea sector imposes on the Indian market, it is very imperative for the tea production department to ensure environmental sustainability of the product. Tea factories ought to maintain corporate social responsibility among its workers. Additionally, there is a need to ensure that even as tea management board work to expand the tea sector, measures are put in place to enhance environmental sustainability and promote wellbeing of the human resource. Idea justification In most areas, the working conditions of the workers are in a sorry state. The poor people who are often used as labourers in tea plantation receive low remuneration, no insurance cover, harassment, failure to have protective gears from adverse weather conditions and other necessities. The trade unions do not focus much on such farmers. The workers in the tea plantation are prone to occupational health hazards. They pick tea for long hours, with tea bags on their backs. The musculoskeletal problems remains an issue especially after a long duration of work. To worsen the situation, most of the regions have an uneven terrain and the slopes are steep. This even strain them further. They are predisposed to falls, which may lead to fractures. The weather conditions are too harsh for these workers, who do work without protective gears. They are at risk of dangerous insects and animals such as mosquitoes and poisonous snakes. With the distance to health facilities being another hindrance, most workers resort to death on most occasions (Wal, 2008, pg. 16). A great number of workers in India do suffer from discrimination of gender and race. Most notably, the workers in tea industry in India comprises of the unskilled semi illiterate population. Most of these people undergo discrimination with reference to the historical contexts. They consist of migrant and the marginalized communities. Ethnicity also plays a great role in promotions and good employments remuneration (Goodland & Daly, 1996, pg. 1010). In India, habitat conversion has been an issue of concern. The better part of the areas suitable for tea growing are the sloppy highlands. Additionally, such areas are remote and rugged. Essentially, they do possess a great component of biodiversity. Due to the escalating demands of tea growth, such areas have to be converted to tea growing areas. The effect on biodiversity is quite wanting. The sloping nature of land reduces the species available. Erosion is inevitable during the process of plantation establishment, leading to loss of top soil (Hicks, 2009, pg. 260). The problem has raised concerns on the sustainability issues. The tea sector has also affected environmental composition. During the processing of tea to finished product, great energy is a necessity. This is provided in form of logs emanating from forests. It leads to excess deforestation. Diverse energy components become a necessity in production process. Such energy range from electricity, natural gas and firewood. The drying process is the most vital, and it necessitates, most producers to have a good stock of firewood logs. The tea industry in India has not concentrated at the deforestation issues with the seriousness it deserves. Continuous deprivation of forests has led to climatic change and evidenced by consequences of global warming. In order to maximize tea production in the later stages, planting necessitates one to utilize diverse agrochemicals. In India, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers are utilized in different stages of tea growth. Huge quantities of pesticides remain useful to control the spread of pests. Eventually, soil fertility becomes a major issue due to overuse of chemicals and fertilizers. This deteriorates the soil life. In conclusion, economic uncertainties have had a great implication on the tea sector in India. There are various costs added to the tea leaves production in each stage of chain supply. There are so many costs including plantation, maintenance, plucking, transportation, sales charge, blending, insurance, packaging, and warehousing amongst others. The farmer is unlikely to get motivating remuneration after the deductions in the expenses. For the last five years, tea prices in the auctioneering zones have been falling day by day. Farmers are not represented well in the trade unions. Most significantly, small tea segments in India do experience title deeds problems, which deters the small-scale farmers to register with the Tea Board. Eventually, they are unable to access financial assistance from financial institutions. Small-scale farmers do not receive adequate training on the ideal way of a tea farm management. The agricultural extension workers are not fully available to farmers. The farmers may not also afford the pesticides and high costs of fertilizers, which leads to low yields (Lutgendorf, 2012, pg. 15). Reflection analysis With reference to the above challenges facing the tea sustainability issues in India, the tea sector has adopted diverse mechanisms to combat the dwindling sector and ensure that all is doing well. Their key goal has been to increase Corporate Social Responsibility in ensuring that sustainability is achieved. All this pressure to consider and adopt CSR measures have come up secondary to agitating clients, expectations from the shareholders, intense pressure from the regulatory boards and prevention of brand quality lowering. The tea in India sector can diversify CSR in diverse ways. The firm can set relevant policies in areas dealing with charity, business integrity, and welfare to the workers, environmental sustainability issues and economic policies. The strategies have been formulated, but the adoption process is too slow. Large plantation firms have adopted the policies, but still not to the ideal level. Such firms include McLeod and Unilever. It is the high time the Indian tea Authority decide to adopt the policies and implement them fully for the sake of environmental sustainability (Moldan, Janoušková, & Hák, 2012, pg. 8). Conclusion In summation, the discussion has brought into limelight the different sustainability issues the tea sector in India is facing. Adoption of ideal solutions to combat the problems is of utmost importance. Failure to adopt the policies in full is likely to stagnate the tea prices in the worldwide market. Being a world-leading producer, India should take the lead in protecting the environment, its workers and production consistency to ensure that the future tea production and proceeds are indeed certain. References Goodland, R., & Daly, H. (1996). Environmental sustainability: Universal and non-negotiable. Ecological Applications, 6, 1002–1017. doi:10.2307/2269583 Hicks, A. (2009). Current status and future development of global tea production and tea products. Au J, 12, 251–264. Lutgendorf, P. (2012). Making tea in India: Chai, capitalism, culture. Thesis Eleven, 113, 11–31. doi:10.1177/0725513612456896 Moldan, B., Janoušková, S., & Hák, T. (2012). How to understand and measure environmental sustainability: Indicators and targets. Ecological Indicators, 17, 4–13. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.033 Wal, S. Van Der. (2008). Sustainability issues in the tea sector: A comparative analysis of six leading producing countries. Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale …. Yong, L. (2007). The Dutch East India Company’s tea trade with China, 1757-1781. TANAP Monographs on the History of the AsianEuropean Interaction.  Read More