Tea marketing company Tata Global Beverages on Thursday published a document on agricultural sustainability guidelines on plant protection formulations.

The document outlines the vision to maintain sustainability in the tea supply chain by supporting good agricultural practices, collaborations, partnerships, independent certifications, pilot projects and agricultural extension activities.

“This applies to all the tea that is purchased either through auctions or directly from suppliers, including subsidiary and associate plantation companies, big and small estates and small holders”, the company said in a statement.

The company’s sourcing strategy has a major focus on sustainable agricultural practices. A key component of this effort aims at achieving optimum productivity, and gradually reducing the dependence on synthetic inputs in the form of plant protection formulas.

TGB is one of the founding members of Trustea, a multi stakeholder initiative led by the Tea Board of India. The Trustea India Sustainability Programme envisions verifying over 600 factories, covering 5 lakh workers and 40,000 small holders by December 2014.

The Tea Board of India through its Trustea initiative and the launch of a new plant protection code (PPC) in July this year announced their plans to certify 500 million kg of tea, amounting to 51 per cent of India’s tea supply by 2017.

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