Uniform safety standards benefit small-scale tea farmers

Tea did not originally exist in decorated jars or neat tea bags. It comes from the leaves of camellia, which is currently grown in more than 50 countries, but mainly in four areas-China, India, Kenya and Sri Lanka. In these areas, tea trees must resist many natural enemies-fungi, bacteria and insects, such as butterflies, moths, scale insects and nematodes. In order to maximize output, tea growers use some chemicals and pesticides to control pests, but if there are still a large number of residues in the post-processing of tea, it will cause potential harm to consumers.

Historically, the tea value chain has been dominated by large government-supported tea plantations, but that has changed as smallholders have become major producers in today's increasingly globalized tea trade. At present, in Sri Lanka and Kenya, more than 70% of the national tea production comes from small farmers, who interestingly own tea gardens covering an area of less than 3 hectares.

This trend is understandable because tea production is very attractive to small farmers. Although it takes 2 to 3 years for tea plants to mature, they can continue to produce tea for 30 years or more in the future. Moreover, tea production can bring jobs and income throughout the year, and requires relatively little investment.

Strict laws and regulations put pressure on small farmers. Global tea consumption demand is growing rapidly, growing at an annual rate of 5 per cent, in part because of per capita income growth in China, India and other emerging economies. This has led to a big increase in tea production, exports and consumption, and pushed market prices to an all-time high. However, many problems also arise.

There are strict limits on chemical residues in post-harvest tea, and some tea-producing countries find it challenging to comply with these regulations. Although importing countries set MRLs as food safety standards, they often develop these standards without full understanding of the actual risks they may pose to consumers, and compliance with these standards is particularly difficult for small-scale tea farmers.

Small farmers tend to use cheaper chemicals, which usually means older brands, while in many cases producers do not update their product guides on how to meet the latest safety standards. As a result, when the importing country estimates the residue limits alone, the results are often much lower than the actual safety limits, which often make it difficult for small-scale tea farmers to achieve. Moreover, since importing countries have established their own MRLs, export producers must provide written materials to prove that their tea meets the requirements of each export destination country. There are even no pest problems, so growers who do not use chemicals still need to spend time and cost to provide written materials to prove their compliance with the relevant regulations.

Uniform standards support small farmers. Due to the introduction of safety standards while the number of small-scale tea producers is growing, these problems are more difficult for the tea industry to solve. In 2001, as a subsidiary body of the Committee on Commodities, the FAO Intergovernmental working Group on Tea decided to find a solution and propose an initiative to give priority to close cooperation among tea producing countries, importing countries, traders, committees, associations and other organizations. Through the working Group on MRLs, the Intergovernmental working Group on Tea works in coordination with the Codex Alimentarius Commission and other standard-setting bodies to harmonize standards among tea-importing countries. Over the next decade, the Intergovernmental Tea working Group enabled producing and importing countries to understand each other's problems, harmonized multiple pesticide residue limits in major importing countries, and strengthened communication between government regulators and tea trade.

In addition to the MRLs working Group, the Intergovernmental working Group on Tea has other members who address issues of great importance to both small-scale tea farmers and industrial growers, including organic tea production requirements, to prompt the tea industry to respond to changes in planting conditions caused by climate change.

Overall, the work of the FAO Intergovernmental Tea working Group on harmonizing MRLs addressed safety concerns among consumers while reducing the cost of meeting safety standards. From a food security perspective, this is particularly important for major tea exporters such as Sri Lanka and Kenya. The two countries import $1 billion worth of food a year, but these costs can be offset by their tea export earnings.