00:00Tamit Lepcha is a contented woman.
00:04She lives in Tunglabong, a village in the Darjeeling region of West Bengal
00:08that gives the famous tea variety its name.
00:12Her family is one of many here who live off tea growing.
00:16Tamit used to toil away on the major plantations for a meagre wage
00:20until attending a workshop changed her life.
00:24After coming back home from the training, I started planting tea
00:28on our land, and little by little we started getting good results
00:32within three to four years.
00:34The workshop was organised by Raja Banerjee,
00:38whose family has been operating plantations for generations.
00:42They mostly employed women, paying them low wages.
00:46Raja Banerjee decided things needed changing
00:49and introduced organic farming methods together with fair wages
00:52for the women working the fields.
00:55His aim, producing tea in harmony with nature.
00:59It takes time, but what you get is sustainability, ethical sustainability,
01:06zero carbon, low cost, regenerative practices that can transform the world.
01:15And that's not the only area where change is necessary,
01:18and not only for people living in the region, he says.
01:22The growing impact of climate change also has consequences for the huge plantations.
01:27Long and excessively hot dry spells make the tea plants vulnerable to pests,
01:31and to other dangers, explains the manager of a big tea producer.
01:36This year we've had temperatures of 35 or 36 degrees Celsius.
01:42It caused the tea bush leaves to catch fire.
01:45Then there are the torrential downpours.
01:47Eight to ten inches of rain in one go has often caused landslides.
01:52In 2018, Raja Banerjee founded a new company, Rinpocha,
01:58which provides support and advice to local farmers in Darjeeling.
02:03They now grow Camellia sinensis Rinpocha,
02:06a more robust variety that is valued for requiring less care
02:10and being less susceptible to both climate change and pests.
02:15And Banerjee is always on hand to provide advice for the tea growers up here.
02:20Among them are Tamit Lepcha and her nephew Fadan.
02:25Do you, what is this?
02:28This is a bitternut.
02:31Wrong sense.
02:32Yes.
02:33This is wealth.
02:34This is, in that sense, yes.
02:36Yes, it goes there.
02:37Yeah.
02:38Few months, it rots.
02:40It becomes humus.
02:41Yes.
02:42Another insight the family has learned,
02:44they only grow tea on around a quarter of their land,
02:47with millet, rice and vegetables also providing an income.
02:50The farm even has its own guest house.
02:53Plus, five cows that supply natural fertiliser.
02:57Another valuable lesson from Rinpocha was how to produce biogas on site.
03:02Every year we used to cut like two trees, you know, for the firewood.
03:06After biogas, that has also stopped.
03:09These and other changes have led to a significant improvement in the family's lives,
03:13especially for the women.
03:16There are now more women working across all areas of the Indian economy.
03:21And their share of the workforce in tea production is far higher than in other sectors.
03:26They typically work up to 10 hours a day for just 250 rupees, equivalent to around two and a half euros.
03:35It isn't enough.
03:37We're poor people who have bills to pay.
03:39Even vegetables cost 50 or 60 rupees per kilo.
03:44Tea garden workers incur expenses of four or five hundred rupees per family,
03:48so the wages need adjusting to incorporate that.
03:51Most of the revenue, of course, goes to the plantation and tea factory owners.
03:57In the case of Tamit Lepcha's village, however,
04:00the harvests from the local farms are processed at tea boutiques like this one.
04:05Rinpocha then sells the packaged product online all around the world,
04:09including to partners in Germany, and at fair prices for the farmers.
04:16The best-selling variety is one that is plucked during a full moon.
04:22The entire village gathers for what is a very special ceremony.
04:27Tea is a major industry in India.
04:34The country is responsible for almost one-fifth of the world's tea production,
04:39second only to China.
04:44The Toklai Tea Research Association was set up over a century ago to support farmers.
04:50These days, the researchers here develop climate-resistant seeds
04:54and AI-assisted cultivation programs.
04:57There's also a big focus on sustainable farming methods
05:00that are increasingly being reintroduced.
05:03Basically, going back to the basics like the soil, the environment,
05:08the restoration of the natural ecosystem.
05:13A hundred years back, also, the tea pest was there, but not to this extent.
05:19For Tamit Lepcha and her family, going sustainable was the right choice.
05:23Her relatives now have a livelihood,
05:26and her cousin no longer has to work on massive plantations for low wages.
05:31And looking ahead, the idea is for their land and its various products
05:35to provide for future generations too.
05:38A hope that they work for here every day.
05:41END
05:55THANK YOU VERY GARDER
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