Tea sector: Need for reform
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The Tamil Nadu tea sector today faces a unique convergence of challenges. Lands under prolonged litigation under the Gudalur Janmam Abolition Act, tea plantations established for the rehabilitation of Sri Lankan Tamils, corporate estates lying abandoned following the expiry of forest leases, and industrial cooperative factories that have not delivered adequate financial returns to small tea growers , all demand a comprehensive and holistic policy response.The Tamil Nadu tea industry has, for over a century, been an important contributor to the State’s economy, generating employment, supporting remote hill communities and shaping the unique landscape of the Nilgiris and adjoining regions. Today, however, the sector faces an unprecedented convergence of challenges. Unresolved land title disputes, expired lease agreements, concerns over afforestation and biodiversity conservation, declining estate profitability, fragmented smallholder production and the need to secure livelihoods have created a complex policy environment where conventional solutions are proving inadequate.Successive attempts to address these issues have tended to focus on individual concerns in isolation. Legal disputes have been viewed separately from commercial viability; conservation priorities have often been seen as competing with production; and livelihood concerns have been addressed without adequately considering long-term land management.Such fragmented approaches inevitably lead to recurring conflicts, prolonged uncertainty and policy paralysis. The time has therefore come to adopt an integrated landscape approach that recognises tea estates not merely as production units, but as multifunctional landscapes delivering economic, social and environmental value. The objective should not be to choose between conservation and production, but to create systems in which both reinforce one another. A possible framework could rest on five key principles.Five principlesFirst, decentralise land ownership or long-term cultivation rights, wherever feasible, in favour of existing workers and genuine small growers, thereby strengthening livelihood security and encouraging long-term investment in land stewardship.Second, establish professionally managed producer cooperatives or producer companies capable of providing technical services, quality management, input procurement, finance and collective marketing. Such institutions should combine community ownership with professional governance.Third, enable existing estate companies to retain strategically important lands required for factories, warehousing, housing and essential infrastructure, while entering into long-term buyback agreements with grower institutions. Transparent green leaf pricing mechanisms linked to market realisations would create stability for both producers and processors.Fourth, promote carefully planned crop diversification on a defined proportion of suitable lands. Tea should remain the dominant crop, but diversification into high-value horticultural, spice or agroforestry systems can strengthen resilience, improve incomes and reduce commercial risk.Finally, integrate ecological restoration into every stage of land-use planning. Afforestation, biodiversity conservation, agroforestry on vulnerable slopes, protection of water bodies and scientifically designed buffer zones adjoining protected forests should become integral components of estate management rather than separate regulatory obligations.Task forceSuch measures would strengthen climate resilience while reducing human-wildlife conflict. Delivering this transformation will require supportive institutional and legal reforms. Government should constitute a high-level multi-stakeholder task force representing departments responsible for revenue, forests, agriculture, plantations, rural development, industry, financial institutions, worker organisations and the tea industry. This body should prepare a comprehensive implementation framework supported by appropriate legal and policy changes, simplified land administration procedures and incentives for sustainable land management. Implementation should be phased over five to seven years.The first phase should focus on validation of land records, stakeholder consultations and preparation of landscape-level master plans. The second phase should establish pilot cooperative models, execute buy-back arrangements and initiate diversification and ecological restoration projects.The final phase should scale successful models across suitable tea-growing regions, supported by continuous monitoring, adaptive management and independent evaluation. The expected outcomes extend well beyond resolution of land disputes. Workers would gain greater livelihood security and opportunities for wealth creation. The tea industry would benefit from more reliable raw material supplies, improved productivity and greater commercial sustainability. Government would achieve progress on environmental restoration, climate resilience and rural development objectives while reducing the burden of recurring disputes.Most importantly, the Nilgiri landscape itself would evolve into a model where economic development and ecological stewardship coexist in a mutually reinforcing manner. The future of the Tamil Nadu tea sector lies not in choosing between production and conservation, but in designing an integrated landscape model that aligns secure livelihoods, commercially viable tea cultivation and environmental restoration within a shared vision for sustainable development.One hopes that the new Government in Tamil Nadu, which has brought a fresh perspective to governance in several areas, will be willing to consider an inclusive, multi-stakeholder framework of this nature to address the long-standing challenges confronting the tea sector.The writer is past President of the United Planters Association of Southern IndiaPublished on August 20, 2026
