Tea production in smallholding has been growing worldwide. The contribution of small tea plantations has been growing significantly and currently shares a good proportion in the total tea production in the country. Small tea plantation is cost effective, economically sustainable, and adds fresh impetus to the industry as there is gradual decline in quality and production of tea in estate sector. The Small Tea Grower (STG) is an alternate model of tea cultivation that fosters the growth of entrepreneurship and provides both direct and indirect employment.
The Small Tea Growers’ Sustainability Program (“STGSP”) in India has started by IDH in 2019. This program aims to close living the living income gap of 35,000 STGs by 2025 through income improvement from tea and other crops, as well as through improving environment sustainability of tea production. This program engages with the sector around the topic of income improvement for STGs in North India, focusing on Assam and West Bengal. The Program is aligned with the IDH Living Income Roadmap.
Projects under the STGSP that address these key improvement areas are implemented with different stakeholders relevant to the sector, such as government, private sector, local communities and NGOs. Currently, the program is present in 5 districts of Assam (Jorhat, Golaghat, Tinsukia, Sibsagar and Dibrugarh) and 1 district of West Bengal (NB-Jalpaiguri).
We are looking for partners who can create projects that improve, innovate, scale or accelerate the effectiveness and efficiency of living income agenda and environmental sustainability initiatives in the Indian tea sector while considering gender as cross-cutting theme. The Call for Proposal expects the solution around following approaches:
- Identification and implementation of innovative approaches which helps increasing the income of STGs to achieve decent standard of living.
- Find the balance between income improvement and environmental sustainability (nexus between IDH themes 1. Better environment and 2. Better income in projects)
- Creating gender transformative project/program while achieving program aims and objectives
The Call for Proposals takes place in two phases:
- concept note stage: In the first round, applicants must submit the concept note for the proposed project via a provided template (Annex 1). Deadline: 16 December 2022
- full proposal stage: In the second round, decision on concept note phase will be communicated to shortlisted applicants and they will be asked to submit a full project proposal. Deadline: 10 February 2022
If there is any query regarding the call for proposal, please reach out to us: Marlies Huijssoon at huijssoon@idhtrade.org or Jatin Bavishi at bavishi@idhtrade.org by 30 November 2022.