Fairtrade Foundation launches new tea campaign

Source: Fairtrade Foundation

This International Tea Day (21 May), the Fairtrade Foundation is calling on tea drinkers, businesses and the UK Government to Brew it Fair and ensure fair pay, decent working conditions and job security for the people who grow, pick and process our tea.

Over 100 million cups of tea are drunk every day in the UK, but not enough of that money goes back to the women and men who grow our tea. And while we've seen some transformational change for Fairtrade tea producers over the past 30 years, far too little tea in the UK is sold on Fairtrade terms.

A new report by the Fairtrade Foundation aims to address those challenges by looking at what we can all do to create a fairer future for the people behind our tea.

Eleanor Harrison, Fairtrade Foundation CEO, said: "The people growing our tea deserve to be able to live with dignity. That means earning a decent income, working in safe conditions, and having the ability to support their families and send their children to school. We all have a role to play in making that happen: from the UK Government introducing a new law to help prevent abuses in tea supply chains; to businesses taking a lead on responsibility; and to all of us as tea lovers in the choices we make when we buy our tea in the supermarket."

The Fairtrade Foundation is calling on the UK Government to:

- Introduce a UK law on human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) that is centred on the needs of overseas farmers and workers, ensuring that the costs and burdens of proof and compliance are not passed onto them.

- Collaborate with businesses to change the future of the tea sector through multistakeholder interventions.

- Honour the UK's International Climate Finance commitment to ensure aid and climate funds can support the people behind the tea we drink to adapt and build resilience to climate change.

The UK public can support this call by signing a petition launched on 21 May.

Fairtrade's new report 'Brew it Fair: Creating a Fairer Future for the People Behind the Tea we Drink' highlights how tea drinkers in the UK have got used to paying very little for tea: and even less to the people who grow it. Only a very small percentage of what people spend buying tea in a UK supermarket goes to the people who have grown the tea, while the price of an average tea bag today is around two or three pence.

A large proportion of global tea is sold by auction which often means a small number of very large buyers using their strength to dictate the prices at which tea is sold at.

The climate remains a real concern for tea farmers, as the plant is highly sensitive to changes in weather. This is especially true in Kenya - where almost half of the tea consumed in the UK is grown - as optimal tea growing conditions are set to decline by 25% by 2050.

In a snapshot survey of more than 250 people who grow and pick our tea in Kenya, carried out by the Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Africa in March, only one in five of the tea producers we interviewed have enough money to support their families, pay for food, and support their children to go to school. Seventy percent of those tea producers said not earning enough money to live on is their main challenge at the moment.

Despite these challenges, there is reason for hope. Fairtrade supports tea producers by helping them conduct risk assessments and implement climate mitigation measures.

Fairtrade has worked in the tea sector for the last three decades. The Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium provide a vital safety net in a sector with persistent low prices, wages and incomes, support efforts to close the gap towards achieving living wages and incomes and are a resource for addressing social and environmental issues.

For example at Gacharage Tea Factory in Kenya, which takes care of 5000 farmers and their families, members decided to spend their Fairtrade Premium on supporting farmers to diversify into avocado and dairy farming to supplement their incomes.

Jacky Wangari, a Tea Farmer and Gacharage Premium Committee member said: "The future looks bright for these young and brilliant Kenyans. We have about nine students enjoying full scholarships through Fairtrade funds… [with] two of them working; one is a teacher and the other one is doing a business in town. If Fairtrade was not there, these bright students in need would not have joined campus."

The Brew it Fair campaign gives UK consumers, the tea industry and the UK government an opportunity to drive transformational change.

Eleanor Harrison said: "The UK accounts for 61 percent of all the Fairtrade tea sold in the world, and Fairtrade tea producers have earned more than £50 million in Fairtrade Premium through sales of Fairtrade tea in the UK over the last 30 years: critical investment for building more resilient farms and communities. However, volumes of Fairtrade tea that producers can sell to Fairtrade markets remains incredibly low: around 4 percent of eligible Fairtrade production is sold on Fairtrade terms at present, limiting our ability to achieve more.

LINKS

Read the 'Brew it Fair: Creating a Fairer Future for the People Behind the Tea we Drink' report: www.fairtrade.org.uk/do-it-fair/tea-report

Sign the petition HERE