Twelve years ago, the Ambootia Tea Estate farm in Darjeeling India was in severe decline. Twenty plus years of chemical farming had left the soil lifeless and depleted. Production was less than half of what it had been before chemicals were introduced. Clear-cutting the hillsides to boost production resulted in erosion and landslides that destroyed over 300 workers’ homes on the estate. And the health of the estate’s total 4500 residents was deteriorating due to constant contact with chemicals.
Then brothers Shashank Goel and Sanjay Bansal bought the estate and started to turn things around. How? By converting to organic production. As a result, yields were up last year alone by 33 percent and health care costs have been cut in half. Shashank estimates that in another two years their yields will reach what they were before Ambootia’s 20-year detour into chemical farming.
Grown on the steep, rugged foothills of the Himalayas in the legendary Darjeeling region of India, Darjeeling teas have been known worldwide as the champagne of black and green teas since the British established tea estates in the 1850s. In the delicate mountain climate of 5000 feet, tea plants don’t produce as much as lower elevations, but the quality is unparalleled.
The Decline
Shashank explains that a tea tree can last up to one hundred years, is very valuable, and must be treated with utmost care. Tea cultivation is an ancient art reaching back centuries. For one hundred years, tea here was grown without chemicals, according to traditional methods, but since the aggressive marketing of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers beginning in the 1960s, most growers in this region have switched to conventional farming. This is threatening the fertility of the soil and the long tradition of natural production in Darjeeling, explains Shashank.
In 1861, Ambootia had long been known for producing some of the finest Darjeeling teas. But by the mid-1980s, tea quality there was compromised by neglect and chemical farming, explains Shashank. Traditionally Ambootia had produced at least 250 tons of tea per year, but by 1985 the drained soil could only produce 100 to 110 tons a year.
The Turnaround
It was then that the residents of the estate, desperate and fighting for their survival, asked Shashank’s family for help. Most families have been living at the estate for centuries, and their whole way of life was in jeopardy. Shashank and his brother grew up on the estate themselves. Their father and uncle started out as laborers and worked their way up through management. Out of a deep love for the people and the land they grew up on, Shashank’s family bought the property and began to restore it through organic cultivation. Shashank says that they reduced chemical use immediately, and in a few years became fully organic.
Caring properly for the soil has been essential, he emphasizes. "Soil, the very basis of life, is the absolute backbone of organic farming."
"It’s an actual fact that with chemical use the soil deadens and the plants die," he explains. "The application of chemicals retards microbial activity and, over a period of time, kills the soil. With chemicals, there’s initially a boost in production. That’s why people adopt chemicals, not realizing that the longterm effect is that, over time, yields actually do go down. It’s very hard to get them back to where they were before chemical use. This is really evident in the tea industry."
Expanding the Vision
Traveling to Germany on business, Shashank expanded his vision for healing the estate when he learned about biodynamics, a system of agriculture founded by Rudolf Steiner (father of Waldorf schools) that was, according to adherents, "one step up from organic," and healing for the soil. While organic’s emphasis is mostly to reduce chemical use, biodynamics also strives to build soil fertility through natural, homeopathic-type "preparations" added to the soil and to compost. "This resonated with our ayurvedic tradition, which uses herbs and remedies to heal the body," says Shashank.
Something else that struck a chord with Shashank was Steiner’s idea that a healthy farm should be like a self-sufficient, balanced organism. The ideal is for the farm to generate everything it needs within the farm, to reduce or eliminate non-farm "inputs" (fertilizer, feed, etc.) so the farm becomes a self-contained, sustainable ecosystem. All the elements of the farm work together to support the whole system and little or no waste is created: animals eat the food grown on the farm, then their manure fertilizes the soil, and an upward spiral of enlivened soil, food, animals, and people is created. All parts work in harmony and the whole farm can become healthier and healthier, and also more abundant.
Ambootia is a living example of this ideal. It truly is a self-sustaining unit, a farm organism. "Everything within the farm comes from within the farm. On a small scale we use the streams to provide hydro-electricity. We use compost from within the farm. We make bio-mass from compost for energy. We use local contractors, and most or all of the food that is consumed here is also produced here." The estate’s 342 cows help make the estate self-sufficient. (They contribute 345 metric tons a year of necessary compost.)
Putting People First
At the center of this farm organism, though, are the residents. In fact, concern for the people is what Shashank had in mind from the first. Each worker, he says, is an involved contributor, not merely an interchangeable part in a big agriculture machine. Workers are seen as involved contributors, not unlike cells in a living organism. The health and well-being of the individual worker is of fundamental importance to the health of the whole estate.
"The uncompromised welfare of the family units on the farm is the single biggest priority," Shashank says. "The worker is central to our lives. It goes much deeper than a business relationship. Needless to say, we are not traditional landlords.
"And we go way beyond other estates in terms of what we offer to our workers." Workers are given — in addition to regular wages — free health care, housing, education, food (all grown right on the estate), scholarships for higher education, access to computers, and small plots of land and farm animals for additional sources of income. There are community and recreational centers. And workers have the equivalent of union representatives. "Opinions from all are solicited, entertained, and put to good use." In short, residents have a quality of life not found in other Darjeeling tea estates.
"Because of this, workers are happier, more fulfilled, and more productive. To them, the tea they produce is more than just a commodity. "They feel that they’re sharing part of themselves with the world. They take great care and passion to produce these finest [of] teas."
Fair Trade Helps Even the Playing Field
With the help of Fair Trade in Europe (a program to help third world workers), Shashank and family have been restoring the infrastructure of the estate and building new facilities for residents. The Fair Trade idea works like this: consumers pay a little extra for a registered Fair Trade product, and this additional income goes toward helping people and farms in developing countries. For instance, when the Darjeeling region suffered devastating landslides and erosion, no government agency came to bail them out. Fair Trade did; they have provided consistent funding to soften the blow.
Only producers who fulfill specific criteria with regard to caring for workers are eligible for Fair Trade funds. Certifying agencies in Europe oversee this process. (A version of Fair Trade is also practiced here in the States by an organization called Eco Exchange, whose mission is to support small organic coffee farmers in Central and South America.)
Europe Drinks More Tea
Ambootia’s largest market is Europe (specifically Germany) where organic production, while still not mainstream, has wider popularity than here in the States. (Organic represents 1 percent of the food market in the U.S.; in Germany it’s above 10 percent.) Japan and Australia are smaller markets.
Ambootia Tea sells in two market niches: the organic, natural foods market and the high-end market. In England, Ambootia tea is sold exclusively at Harrods and served at the Georgian, the world-famous restaurant within Harrods. The entire waitstaff gets trained in tea and in Ambootia’s superior methods of producing it. Senior Harrods personnel even visited the estate to better understand why Ambootia’s practices produce a finer tea.
Ambootia has been in the States only 18 months, but the U.S. is perhaps its greatest potential market. There’s a rapidly growing awareness here of tea (particularly green tea) as a healthful drink rich in powerful antioxidants, and this awareness translates into a growing industry. Two tea retailers now market Ambootia products in the States: Stash Tea and The Republic of Tea. Stash carries four kinds of Ambootia’s black teas as well as the green tea. They’ve even set up a tour of Ambootia as a certified organic/biodynamic tea estate at their web site. And three out of eight of The Republic of Tea’s "Estate Tea Collection" are Ambootia products.
Organic Leaders in India and Beyond
Ambootia is a leader in the organics movement in India. Sanjay is chairman of the Indian Bio-organic Growing Association. The farm’s goal is to encourage other farmers (tea farmers and others) to adopt organic practices, and it has a local office in south India to work directly and intensively with local farmers to become certified organic. So far 10 out of the 86 tea estates in the Darjeeling region are organically certified, but Shashank hopes the number will grow. The only caution, he says, is that some of these growers are merely trying to jump on the organic bandwagon; they may not share the deep commitment to the values of restoring the soil and treating workers fairly. That’s where the organic standards/certification will help keep the organic label pure — but may not provide a panacea.
The brothers clearly share a deep commitment to improving the environment, as most organic and biodynamic growers do. And of course, Ambootia’s influence is felt far beyond India. Shashank, head of marketing for the company, constantly flies all over the world to educate people about the importance of organic agriculture for rejuvenating the environment.
Today Ambootia stands as the largest biodynamic tea estate in the world. They’re a living example of how an organic tea estate can be viable on a large scale. But perhaps more importantly, Ambootia serves as a model of fair and equitable working conditions for their 4500 residents.
The Coming Century: Going Forward By Going Back
It’s clear that what Ambootia is doing is working. This year Ambootia will produce 180 tons of tea, up from 140 tons last year — a 33 percent increase. "That tells us that the organic systems are working," Shashank says proudly. "We’re hoping to get back to 250 tons annually that Ambootia achieved before chemicals." Today, however, there’s respect for balance and limits to unbridled growth. Of the estate’s 2500 acres, only 750 are used for tea cultivation. The remaining 1750 acres are preserved for uncultivated flora and fauna.
Ambootia is leading the way in bringing back natural methods through the organic and biodynamic systems that help heal the land. Converting to organic production reestablishes a long standing tradition in Darjeeling of "tea cultivation which interferes as little as possible with the ways of nature," says Shashank. In a way it’s a reacknowledgement of the sacredness of the region.
"Today’s complex world, wounded by a chemical onslaught, urges us to return to nature, to re-establish the lost link," he says. "This plague unleashed by the bumper crop believers needs to be reined in."
"The coming century," adds his brother, Sanjay, "will be one of correction." At Ambootia, they’ve already got a jump start.