Retail Sales Projections are Ho-Hum for the Holidays | India Returns to English Tea Auction Rules | UC Davis Tea Institute Launches a Training Program for Tea Professionals

HEAR THE HEADLINES – Retail Sales Projections are Ho-Hum for the Holidays | Sales growth adjusted for inflation will be in the single digits, the lowest growth rate since the financial crisis | India Abandons Bharat Experiment and Returns to English Tea Auction Rules | UC Davis Tea Institute Launches a Training Program for Tea Professionals 

| FEATURE INTRO – A greater share of revenues from tea needs to reach growers. Smallholders worldwide produce most of the world’s tea by volume – yet their net earnings are only a tiny fraction of the product's retail price. Establishing price minimums for raw leaves encourages overproduction – but failing to price green leaves high enough to recover the rising cost of labor and inputs leads to low yields and mediocre quality. The situation is acute in South India, where thousands of growers gathered daily this month to draw attention to their plight. Aravinda Anantharaman reports from the Nilgiri mountains. 

Desperate Tea Workers in India Protest Silently for Weeks – For over 20 days this September, more than 30,000 people took part in a silent hunger protest on behalf of farmers, mainly from the indigenous Bataga Community living in Ooty, Kothagiri, and Coonoor in the Nilgiris mountains of South India. The demonstrations ended last week, but only after the High Court took cognizance of the petitions that urgently plead the case for fixing a minimum price for green leaf.

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