Brief description of the project:

Gorkha Tea Estate is cooperating with GIZ and TeeGschwendner GmbH, Meckenheim, Germany, to produce quality organic tea with a strong and focused developmental objective. Around 80 smallholder tea farmers groups are benefiting from this project that is supporting them to produce 100% organic tea. The project activities are centered on the Gorkha Tea Estate factory that has recently been constructed in the region of Ilam (East Nepal, bordering with Darjeeling, West Bengal, India).

The factory is equipped with modern machinery to aid production of organic orthodox tea in Nepal. The project aims to assure good working conditions by minimising the use of harmful pesticides among farmer families, and by building supportive systems within a well designed factory. By the end of this project, it is expected that the farmers and the Gorkha Tea Estate will produce high quality tea complying with international standards for organic tea production, and have an improved access to services related to cultivation, processing, and marketing of organic tea.

At the micro level, 80 smallholder tea farmer groups are currently having their tea processed at Gorkha Tea Estate. At institutional level, the project aims to involve key sector organisations, such as the Himalayan Orthodox Tea Producers’ Association and the Himalayan Orthodox Tea Producers’ Cooperative (HIMCOOP), as well as a number of farmer cooperatives.

Gorkha Tea Estate and the farmers are continuously provided technical support related to cultivation and processing of organic orthodox tea, and the process is being supported by GIZ and TeeGschwendner GmbH in implementing a quality management system along the supply chain. This system is designed with a view to lead farmers to attain organic certification. Each farm started the change process according to their specific needs and was supported by the PPP partners in the process of continuous upgrading. Over time, the production of all target farmer groups has been focused entirely towards organic certification.

There is also a provision in the project to support production and promotion of new tea varieties which have the likelihood to grow in the region. For the cultivation part in the supply chain, the project will develop training concepts/manuals and training material on topics such as sustainable and organic tea production, and the project’s experiences on cultivation of potential new varieties of tea, and all information will be comprehensively disseminated to tea associations with a view to generate advisors for organic certification in the long term. In this sense, the advisors will counsel the farmers for compliance with the criteria of organic certification.

Gorkha Tea Estate Factory	The majority of workers employed in the tea industry are women