An Overview Of Our Solution
Organic tea farming provides safe tea, protects and builds natural resources and enhances ecosystems biodiversity. The transition to organic production requires resources and know-how and in most cases the producers are let alone investing efforts to overcome the steep learning curve organic management requires. In addition, organic standards enforce minimum requirements, overlooking aspects such as closed nutrient cycles or biodiversity, which are critical for sustainability. Fairbiotea supports tea farm sustainable development beyond organic standards by building partnerships between engaged tea importers, exporters and producers that share common ideas on sustainability. The partners assign 2% of trade turnover to provide sustainable nutrient cycling, research, sustainable production consultancy, community education and strengthen social welfare.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Europe
General Information
Organization type
Corporation
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
700 directly plus thousands of consumers
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
307 ha
Production quantity
500 ton
People employed
300 people
Solution
Describe your solution
Fairbiotea is a partnership created between like-minded tea traders that lay a set of additional measures and standards that go far beyond current organic standards such as EC organic regulation or US NOP. The Fairbiotea selected tea farms were originally endeavoring to produce organic tea by using sustainable methods. The Fairbiotea importer and exporter partners allocate each 2% of the annual tea trade to realize Fairbiotea projects. The money is used in projects that aim to achieve real sustainability. The principles used to decide on projects are commonly designed and establish by the trade partners. In addition, expert consultancy on sustainable farm management is financed to ensure problems are timely solved and sustainable production is always supported. Faribiotea philosophy is that sustainability, fairness and safety in organic tea farming can only be developed and assured through the continuous commitment of responsible trading companies. The traders must play an active role and make efforts to implement sustainability and quality management in the tea farms. Fairbiotea partners believe this is the only way to facilitate healthy development in the interests of setting up a completely self-sustained ecological system and the only way to cover the costs involved for converting to sustainable organic farming. Furthermore, the trading partners at home and abroad must be willing to take on more responsibility for the social development in the farms.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
- Examples of Fairbiotea successfully implemented projects are: 1. Co-finance the road infrastructure to communicate the tea farm with the main road, before only possible by boat. 2. Finance repairing road infrastructure inside the farm for easy access by of vehicles, increasing mechanization to, for example, transport compost to the high parts of the tea farm. 3. Farm and factory modernization. New truck acquired. Composting equipment acquired, such as compost turner, tractor, wood shredder, compost sieve, oxygen meter and thermometer to produce high quality compost. 4. Acquisition for the local school of audiovisual equipment and renovation of one classroom. 5. The households obtained a yearly cash bonus for 4 years to help the local community. 6. Shadow trees planting. 7. Build biogas digesters for households.
- Fairbiotea ensures the solution is adopted and promoted change in human activities in two ways: 1. An annual inspection carried out by a third party inspection body. A certificate is issued only if the projects proposed for the year have been implemented 2. Fairbiotea consultant assists in implementing the projects agreed for the year and monitors the project.
- The enabling conditions in Fairbiotea are the common goals shared by Fairbiotea stakeholders and the realization that long term sustainability should be a core management strategy in the tea industry.
- The key success factors in Fairbiotea are the continuous long term cooperation between stakeholders.
- Implementing some of the projects finds sometimes resistance from the producers. For example, producers are not aware of the benefits of compost because it has no short term visible effect. One of the ways to overcome is by researching. Fairbiotea invest resources in researching the effect of compost in tea yield and quality. The other way is by incentive adoption with extra benefits, such as financing cow rising programs or households monetizing cow manure (paying farmers for manure).
External connections
The importer partner is Kloth & Köhnken Teehandel GmbH, a German tea importer and the largest organic tea importer in Europe. There are two exporters, Hunan Tea Company, which works in cooperation with many of the organic farms in Hunan province, and the other is Puer Zuxiang, a producer and exporter with long tradition in organic tea farming in Yunnan province. After all these years we have learnt and gain experience and new exporters and producing partners are visiting the projects with the intention to join Fairbiotea.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Fairbiotea targets the same environmental challenges that organic farming does. However, the philosophy of Fairbiotea is that to ensure sustainable tea production one has to go beyond the minimum requirements laid in the organic standards. Most of the organic tea farms in China use soy bean cake or similar fertilizers. Any organic fertilizer not appropriately composted, is less stable and nutrient losses occur, resulting in both low efficiency and greater global warming effect. These fertilizers are low in organic matter content, which is fundamental for building soil fertility. These imported non-local fertilizers contain high nitrogen and “additional nitrogen can disrupt an ecosystem’s delicate balance and the addition of nutrients to terrestrial ecosystems causes a loss of diversity”. Fairbiotea also aims at increasing social welfare to prevent depopulation, an essential aspect of sustainability since rural population is critical to maintain the natural environment and the culture.
Describe the context in which you are operating
The Faribiotea farms are in Hunan and Yunnan province, totaling 4 farms. Despite the farms in the two locations have different climate and cultural aspects, many of the social factors are common. Traditionally, up to three generations live under one roof: grandparents, one to two pairs of parents and one or two children. The residents are either people who work as seasonal day laborer, people unable to work due to their advanced age and/or illness or they are children. There are primary schools and secondary schools in the area but most of the children cannot get there on a day-by-day basis and they stay in the boarding school during the week. The main crop in the areas is tea, which is the main cash crop. Households have private vegetable gardens and some raise animals that serves the basic family needs for food. In recent years almost all young population (parents) of working age have left their families to find a better-paid work, often far from home. Today such migrant worker jobs are frequently the main source of income for China’s rural families. Due to migration of young people into the cities, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough workers for the tea fields. The labor shortage in the tea agriculture increasingly affects the quality of the labor-intensive organic tea cultivation. Despite steadily rising wages there are not enough workers available. In addition, rural population is essential for natural and cultural resources conservation.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Compost production and use is a core practice in Fairbiotea farms. By substituting imported soy bean cake for high quality compost we make sure the best fertilizer possible is used. Compost-tea brew is also prepared from mature compost for foliar fertilization and pest prevention. Fairbiotea encourages composting using local resources and a parallel program to raise cows by households has been implemented. In one of the farms, an old resident is taking care of a herd of 7 cows, and the number is expected to increase this year. Other of the main projects that Fairbiotea is implementing is planting native tree species for shadow. Shadow trees are beneficial in tea production, as the shadow improves tea organoleptic characteristics. In addition, trees act as natural repellent of pests, are habitat of natural pest predators such as birds and insects and have large rooting systems to capture nutrients non accessible to the tea bushes which will build soil fertility from leaf litter.
Language(s)
Chinese mandarin and other Chinese dialects
Water
Compost improves soil structure and the soil water holding capacity. Planting of shadow trees also enhance water retention. The Fairbiotea project also financed biogas digesters where the pig slurry and other organic waste are fermented. The fermented slurry is more suitable as fertilizer for household vegetable production and prevents pig manure run off to water reservoirs.
Food Security/Nutrition
Fairbiotea encourages that the compost produced is used by the households in their own vegetable gardens, ensuring that vegetable fields are also fertilized with the best available organic fertilizer. In addition to fertilizer for the private vegetable gardens, the biogas digesters provide heat for cooking to the households.
Economic/Sustainable Development
The welfare of the households has improved through the projects Fairbiotea implements, for example communicating the farm by road, and it is expected that the economy of households will increase in the coming years when Fairbiotea tea prices increase.
Climate
Composting reduces greenhouse gases emissions compared to uncontrolled fermentation. Besides, compost increases soil carbon content, therefore sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. In fact, compost production can be granted with carbon credits. Methane produced for heating from digesters prevents its release of this GHG to the atmosphere. Fairbiotea has financed the acquisition of electric equipment for tea processing to substitute wood and coal that had a greater impact on global warming.
Sustainability
Traders involved in Fairbiotea acknowledge sustainability is not a marketing term and investing in sustainability is necessary to stay in business in the long term, it is a part of the business core management. The tea can be already sold at higher prices, however, a greater engagement in consumers have to honor this work by paying fair, appropriate prices for tea. Full economic sustainability can be achieved once the consumers acknowledge the system. Until that happen, trading partners believe they should invest to achieve a fully sustainable tea production since their future depends on it.
Return on investment
Around 200,000 Euro have been spent in projects. It is a long term investment that will take years to return and we are still half way to full implementation. In this time, the dependence on external fertilizers has reduced and the nutrient cycle is becoming step by step more closed. Research fields will take years to give results but we are confident research is the way to find solutions for sustainable tea production. Shadow trees grow slowly so full potential is still to come. Trade partners have established long term cooperation that help ensuring Fairbiotea finance but also stable trade relations, which are essential for healthy trading. Knowledge exchange help the partners understand and adapt faster to changing situations.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The project started back in 2007 and it continues all the way to today. Fairbiotea requires like-minded trading partners to join but we are happy if others get inspired and create their own system to achieve real sustainability. The realization that soil and other natural resources degradation are threatening the food industry and the active participation of trading partners is required: sustainability should be at the core in the management strategies in the food industry. Fairbiotea requests 2% of the trade turnover over a year but the amount could be adjusted according to the specific conditions. A consultant to provide technical advice able to empower the local community is also essential.