The tea in your cup today began its journey in someone else’s hands. Hands whose work most of us never think about.
Almost certainly, those hands belonged to a smallholder farmer tending a plot, plucking leaves under long mornings of mist and rain. Two leaves and a bud. Thousands of times. Smallholders account for about 60 percent of global tea supply.
The industry built on their labour is worth $19.5 billion a year and supports the economies of some of the world’s poorest countries. Yet the conditions that sustain that work – ecological, economic and climatic – are under growing pressure.
Tea is the most popular drink on earth after water. Global production reached 7.3 million tonnes last year, and per capita consumption continues to rise steadily. From outside, the sector appears healthy. Yet the millions of smallholder farming families driving that growth in China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda and beyond need stronger support if the sector’s momentum is to endure.
The geography of tea production is also one of economic necessity, linked to patterns of dependence and rural livelihoods. Kenya is the world’s largest tea exporter. Sri Lanka, Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda rank among the global top 10.
In these economies, revenues from tea exports help finance food imports and sustain rural livelihoods across entire regions. The sector remains a major source of employment and income for millions of poor families worldwide.
That income is more fragile than the industry’s headline numbers suggest. International tea prices, adjusted for inflation, have been declining for four decades. The sector’s nominal value has expanded, while the real purchasing power of many producers has stagnated.
FAO has documented what this means at the household level: when farmgate prices fall, smallholder families reduce spending on food, education and healthcare.
Small producers also face limited market access, inadequate extension services, weak access to credit and technology, and persistent asymmetries in how value is distributed across the supply chain.
As production costs rise and price increases transmit unevenly through markets, many farming families struggle to generate sufficient returns to reinvest in farm renewal, climate adaptation or productivity improvements. These pressures heighten income volatility and make long-term planning increasingly difficult.
Tea production and processing are major sources of employment and income for women across East Africa and South Asia. When smallholder tea farming families prosper, women’s economic participation will determine whether that prosperity and stability hold.
Programmes that support women directly through training, market access and financial resources consistently produce stronger outcomes for both households and communities. In many tea-growing regions, women sustain not only household economies, but also the continuity of the knowledge and labour on which the crop depends.
For a smallholder farmer without savings or insurance, a lost harvest is not a temporary setback. It immediately affects household spending on food, medicine and schooling.
More efficient, inclusive and sustainable value chains, including greater local value addition and stronger producer participation in markets, are essential if the benefits of the growing tea economy are to reach both the people and the environments that sustain it.
Per capita tea consumption in many producing countries remains relatively low, meaning the sector’s growth potential is still substantial.
Ensuring the sector’s viability, however, requires more than rising consumption levels.
Smallholder producers need better access to finance, markets, technology, and climate adaptation support calibrated to their realities.
More transparent and balanced value chains, targeted investment that reaches women directly, and stronger incentives for reinvestment at farm level will determine whether the industry’s future growth will remain economically and socially sustainable.
The farmer who grew your tea will get up again tomorrow morning before sunrise. The future of the sector depends on ensuring this remains a viable livelihood option.