Tea Smallholding Research Articles

Storm in a teacup: implications of mobile phone literacy on sustainable smallholder agri-food supply chains in developing economies

PurposeThis study explores digital transformation in the tea supply chain within developing economies, with a focus on smallholder tea producers in Sri Lanka. Tea is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. Among the tea producers, smallholder tea producers account for a substantial portion of total tea production in several countries. Mobile phones play a significant role in providing smallholder producers with access to crucial agricultural information, markets and financial services.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a deductive approach, analysing mobile phone ownership, literacy, experience and perception among smallholder tea producers. The chi-squared test of independence and hierarchical clustering methods were used to test the hypotheses and address the research questions.FindingsThe study identifies four clusters of smallholder tea producers as Basic Tech Adopters, Digital Laggards, Skeptical Feature Phone Users and Tech-savvy Adopters based on their characteristics towards mobile-based technologies. Approximately 75% of the surveyed sample, which included both tech-savvy and basic-tech adopters, showed a positive attitude toward adopting mobile-based agricultural technologies.Practical implicationsThe study suggests developing targeted strategies and policies to enhance the productivity of the smallholder tea production process in developing economies. The study highlights the importance of awareness, access, affordability and availability when implementing digital services for businesses at the base of the pyramid, such as tea smallholdings in developing economies.Originality/valueThe present study aims to address the lack of data-driven empirical studies on the use of mobile phones in smallholder settings. The findings of this study enable the enhancement of entrepreneurship within the tea production supply chain, especially, within stakeholders who deliver digital transformation support services.

Appraising the Effectiveness of Value Chain Models of Public-Private Partnership Extension Services on the Productivity Improvement and Livelihood Development of Tea Smallholding Sector in Sri Lanka

Appraising the Effectiveness of Value Chain Models of Public-Private Partnership Extension Services on the Productivity Improvement and Livelihood Development of Tea Smallholding Sector in Sri Lanka

Evaluating Tea Land Suitability and Potential Challenges in the High Grown Region (HGR) of Sri Lanka: A Case Study of Kothmale DS Division, Sri Lanka

The tea plantation of Sri Lanka heavily relies on land suitability and proper cultivation practices. Although the High Grown Region (HGR) contributed a high proportion of tea production to the supply chain. This study evaluates the land suitability of tea plantations and potential challenges that hinder sustainable tea production of HGR selecting the GN divisions in the Kothmale DS division. In this study, Analytical Hierarchy Process and descriptive statistics were used as data analysis techniques. Results revealed that 6.33 sq km (45.6%) is very highly suitable, 7.02 sq km (50.7%) is highly suitable, 0.51 sq km (3.6%) is moderately suitable, and 0.11 sq km (0.07%) is unsuitable for tea plantations. However, despite the land suitability, tea production has been gradually declining due to various factors. soil erosion, old seedling tea bushes, the spread of disease, the government’s ban on chemical fertilizer and pesticides, the escalation of fertilizer and other input prices due to inflation, inadequate subsidy schemes for replantation, and labor scarcity. To address these challenges this study suggests that the tea smallholding authority and the government should implement subsidy schemes for replantation and introduce proper mechanisms for the use of fertilizer and other inputs in an affordable manner.

Influence of Collective Action on the Efficacy of Tea Smallholding Development Societies in Sri Lanka

Influence of Collective Action on the Efficacy of Tea Smallholding Development Societies in Sri Lanka

Effects of Different Root Inducing Agents on Cutting Propagation of Tea (Camellia sinensis)

Aims: In commercial cultivations, vegetative propagation through rooting of cuttings is common, and IBA- based rooting hormone is often used. However, due to the need for non-chemical alternatives in organic cultivations, organic rooting substances have become increasingly important. Hence considering this, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of different root-inducing agents on the propagation of tea cuttings.
 Study Design: The experimental units were arranged in a completely randomized design.
 Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted in a special project nursery belonging to TSHDA (Tea Small Holding Development Authority) in Beralapanathara GN division of Pasgoda divisional secretariat in Matara, Sri Lanka.
 Methodology: The nodal cuttings were pre-treated with six different root-inducing agents including water (control), Aloe vera gel, coconut water, honey charcoal mixture, potato juice and rooting hormone (0.3% IBA). Each treatment was replicated four times with 20 cuttings in each. Cuttings' survival percentage, rooting percentage, the number of roots, root length and fresh and dry weights of the roots were evaluated during three phases as 2nd, 4th and 6th week. The data were statistically analyzed using SAS statistical package and treatment means were compared using DMRT at 5% significance level.
 Results: The results revealed that there were significant differences between the treatments on cutting performances. The cuttings treated with rooting hormone showed the highest values in rooting percentage (55.8%), sprouting percentage (72.3%), during the 4th week and root length (2.1cm) and root dry weight (0.254g) during the 6th week. Moreover, coconut water and Aloe vera gel showed no significant higher values in most of the measured variables compared to the rooting hormone.
 Conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that coconut water and Aloe vera gel can be considered alternative rooting substances to the chemical-based rooting hormone for organic tea cultivations.

The Effectiveness of Farmer Field School Extension Approach for Technology Transfer to Tea Smallholders in Sri Lanka

Although tea smallholders play a dominant role in the tea industry in Sri Lanka, they have faced many constraints such as poor adoption of technology, scarcity of skilled labor and inputs, low productivity, high cost of production, etc. In searching for a viable mechanism to address the technology adoption issues, this study designs to assess the effectiveness of the Farmer Field School (FFS) extension approach implemented in Kandy district in Sri Lanka to improve the adoption rate of cultural practices toward increasing productivity and profitability in tea smallholdings. The stratified purposive sampling technique was performed to select 50 tea smallholders who participated in FFS programs and another 50 tea smallholders who have not attended the same programs (NFFS Group) in eight Grama Niladhari Divisions in the Kandy district. A cross-sectional field survey using a pretested and validated survey instrument was administrated to collect primary data. Using the 5-point Likert scale, indices were developed to measure variables, and descriptive analysis and ordered logistic regression analysis were performed to analyze the data. The results show that there was a significant difference in the adoption of agricultural practices between FFS and NFFS tea smallholders (t =3.362, p < 0.001), the productivity of land (t = 1.991, p < 0.05), and cost of production (t = -3.976, p < 0.001). The results of the ordered logistic regression model revealed that the model was fitted significantly (p < 0.05) and confirmed that the degree of adoption of recommended cultural practices by tea smallholders was positively and significantly correlated with their educational level (p < 0.05), attitude on field practices (p < 0.1), knowledge of tea field technologies (p < 0.01), experience in tea cultivation (p < 0.1), tea land productivity (P < 0.05), and group dynamic interaction in the learning process of tea farm field school-extension related learning activities (p < 0.05). Hence, this study proved that the FFS approach is a useful agricultural innovation and dissemination platform for improving tea smallholders’ knowledge and changing their attitude toward the adoption of cultivation practices for improving tea smallholdings’ land productivity and profitability in Sri Lanka.

Barriers to optimize the upstream of the tea smallholding supply chain in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is the world’s fourth-largest tea producer and prime orthodox variety supplier. In Sri Lanka, tea export earnings peaked in 2014 at USD 1.56 billion, and the industry managed to record USD 1.3 billion in 2021, regardless of the increased cost of production and lower yields. The majority (75%) of total tea production is supplied by tea smallholders whose land extent is less than ten acres [1]. Tea is grown in 14 districts, and smallholder farmers play a significant role in Rathnapura, Galle, Matara, Kandy, Kalutara, and Kegalle districts. Smallholder farmers cultivate 61% of the total tea-grown land, which amounts to 200,000 hectares. According to the Tea Small Holdings Development Authority (TSHDA), approximately 75% of smallholder land plots are less than one acre, demonstrating the notable contribution of micro-level farming to the industry

The Typology of Tea Smallholding Development Societies: Assessing Their Multifunctional Approach in &lt;em&gt;Badulla&lt;/em&gt; District of Sri Lanka

The Farmer-based organizations (FBO) have mechanisms to address the collective issues of farmers. In the present socio-economic context, the traditional approaches adopted by the FBOs to empower the farmers have been challenged by internal and extern al dynamics. The ‘Multipurpose Service Approach’ has been proposed to address the broader needs of farmers. Tea Small Holding Development Societies (TSDS) were establishe d to work on the wellbeing of the tea smallholders. This study sought to identify the various activities carried out by TSDS in the Badulla district and classify TSDS based on adherence to the Multifunctional service approach. Data were collected from twenty-one TSDS using structured interviews, selected by stratified random sampling technique. TSDSs' participatio n in the identified twelve activities was assessed using a 0-10 score method. Data were analyzed descriptively, using signs , the Man-Whitney test, and cluster analysis. TSDS in the Badulla district showed a different level of execution of multifunctions. When considering production support packages, the supply of inputs was at a satisfactory level (Score 6) in the majority of TSDS. However, the role of the organization in linking the extension service with the members was not sa tisfactory. The provision of loans and other financial services wa s poor. Market-oriented activities were kept to a minimum. There was a lack of policy dialogue within the organizatio n. Based on the variability of the practicing of multifunc tional service approach, six clusters could be identified, including one with almost dormant TSDSs in many of the activities considered. Five other clusters had varying levels of engagement in different functions on certain aspects. The overall multifunctional service approach performances of TSDS were not satisfactory.

Developing an Assessment Frame for Tea Sector Farmer Organizations Based on Opinions of Agriculture Extension Personnel

Farmer based, Tea Smallholding Development Societies (TSDSs) were established to address resource limitation problems faced by individual farmers. Well established Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) provide many services to the members, including the supply of inputs, capacity building, extension, processing and marketing, financial services, welfare and business activities. This study attempted to understand the relative importance of these tasks of the TSDSs. An opinion survey was conducted, using a self-administered structured questionnaire, with two groups of respondents, who were requested to give a rating for a set of functions. These two groups consisted of working extension officials (EO) and extension experts having close interactions with the tea sector. Results revealed that a majority of the extension officials prefer TSDS to be focused on need identification, extension activities and dealing with inputs and resources. The EOs affiliated to the two main extension organizations had similar opinion on the functions. The Chi-square test confirmed that the socio-personal factors did not differ in the two groups. In contrast with the opinion of the EOs, the Experts group expect the TSDS to be more committed to marketing related activities. This was in line with the ground situation of the success FBOs in the region. However, the Expert group has not undermined the importance of the three tasks that EOs valued. For-profit activities have received fairly good rating from the Experts than that of the other category. Other functions received a low rating by both parties except welfare activity which was slightly favoured by EOs. Based on the factor analysis, it appears that some of these dimensions may be grouped into two components, such as economic-oriented and service-oriented. This information on relative importance could be used in assessing the TSDS.

The Technical Efficiency of Small-scale Tea Plantation in Sri Lanka

The tea smallholding sector is the leader in national tea production in Sri Lanka. However, it is believed that increasing profit is very difficult without increasing costly inputs, considering the high cost of production. This paper investigates the technical efficiency of smallholder tea farmers (STFs) in Sri Lanka by employing stochastic production frontier using a sample of 120 STFs. The results showed that the average technical efficiency of selected STFs is 78.44 per cent. This indicates that output can be further increased by 21.56 per cent without increasing the level of input. Gender and access to quality extension services were identified as the variables that have the greatest impact on technical efficiency. The results further showed the labour is the most important factor for tea production.

Determinants of productivity variation and technical efficiency of tea small holders in the low country of Sri Lanka

Tea is produced in Sri Lanka by the estate sector and smallholdings sector. Currently, tea smallholders contribute to 75% of the total tea production in the country. The highest extent of smallholder owned tea lands are accumulated in the low country (&lt;300 m amsl), covering Ratnapura, Galle and Matara districts. Although the productivity of tea smallholdings sector appears comparatively higher than the estate sector, there is an extensive gap between the lowest and the highest productivity values. The objectives of this study were to identify the determinants of productivity variation and to determine the technical efficiencies of tea smallholders in the low country of Sri Lanka. A field survey was conducted for primary data collection from 300 tea smallholders representing 68 tea inspector regions. Data were analyzed by FRONTIER 4.1 and the stochastic frontier production function was estimated for both Cobb-Douglas and Trans log models. The Trans Log model fitted the best, in explaining the determinants compared to the Cobb-Douglas model. The direct effects of hired labour, family labour, fertilizer and chemical were statistically significant (P&lt;0.05) in the stochastic frontier, and the coefficients for these factors were 0.07, 0.12, 0.0.95 and -0.01, respectively. The average technical efficiency was 68.81% (range: 15% to 93.43%). The possibility of increasing output, without increasing the existing level of input was 31.19%.

Evaluation of Tea Smallholder’s Attitudes on Recommended Agricultural Practices in Tea: A Case Study in Pussellawa Tea Extension Officer Range, Sri Lanka

Tea smallholdings sector plays a major role in the tea industry of Sri Lanka contributing 75% to the national tea production. Attitudes of tea smallholders critically affect the adoption of recommended agricultural practices. This study was aimed at evaluating the attitudes of tea smallholders on the recommended agricultural practices in tea and the determinants responsible for shaping these attitudes. A sample of 110 smallholders was selected and primary data were collected using questionnaires. Multiple Regression and non-parametric statistical methods were adopted to analyse data using SPSS software package. In conclusion, a majority of tea smallholders had favourable attitudes on the recommended agricultural practices. With regard to the attitude determinants, farmer knowledge, experience and exposure to tea related extension programs have significantly affected in shaping the attitudes of tea smallholders. Farmer knowledge and experience showed a linear relationship with the attitudes of smallholders.

Are tea smallholders’ farmer organisations in Sri Lanka focused towards sectoral issues? a review on present status and way forward

Smallholders are the key contributors in the Sri Lankan tea industry, which brings much needed foreign income to the county. There has been ambiguity among the stakeholders about the road map to be followed by the tea farmers' organisations in Sri Lanka. This review attempt to discuss the critical issues in tea smallholding sector, the present status of Farmer Organisations (FOs) and their contribution in resolving the issues and to provide some insights on how they can be strengthened. This review is developed through the analysis of available literature and secondary data. The literature shows that FOs, in the world, has gone many miles in the paths of member empowerment, production support, processing, financing, extension service, welfare and marketing. Tea Small Holding Development Societies were formed by the government of Sri Lanka focussing on similar objectives, particularly agriculture development, marketing facilities, welfare activities and providing credits and inputs. Low productivity, low household income, poor adoption of technologies, small land size, senility of tea, poor service receiving from the state agencies, weak infrastructure facilities, labour issues and low prices for green leaf tea are the interconnected critical issues faced by the smallholders at present and which comes under the purview of the above objectives. Evidence, however, shows that tea sector farmers' organisations (Tea Smallholding Development Societies - TSDS) have not been able to achieve their expected gole. Some strategic approaches adopted by Indian Farmer Producer Companies, Japanese Agriculture Cooperatives and Kenyan Tea Development Agency such as shifting into the market orientation, value addition, product diversification, integration of services, collective approaches, strengthening of the federated structure should be considered in developing TSDS. This approach is coherent with social enterprise concepts. Non-profit organisations integrate for-profit activities to strengthen their social mission to meet the current socio-economic challenges. Thus, based on the evidence, the author believe that TSDS should be transformed as social enterprises.

An Estimation of Technical Efficiency of Tea Smallholdings in Ratnapura District of Sri Lanka

While accepting the fact that the tea smallholdings sector of Sri Lanka immensely contribute to the annual tea output of the economy, the sector still faces various deficiencies due to problems pertaining to input related issues. Measuring the level of efficiency and identifying the factors which are attributed to inefficiency are in utmost importance in introducing remedies for that. A cross sectional survey was conducted on a sample of tea smallholders in Ratnapura district where highest contribution to the total tea production of the country is made. In this study, the Cobb-Douglas Stochastic production frontier model was used by incorporating the technical inefficiency effect model to estimate the level of technical efficiency in tea smallholdings sector. The study revealed that average technical efficiency of tea smallholdings sector in the study area was 87.36 percent that keeps a margin of 12.64 percent for further improvements through better use of available resources and technology. The results of the Cobb-Douglas model revealed that the estimated coefficients of land, labor and fertilizer are positively and significantly affect the green leaves production of the sector. The findings of the inefficiency model disclosed that age, farming experience, level of education, occupation, age of tea plants, farming group membership and credit access have significant negative impact on technical inefficiency

ASSESSMENT ON PERFORMANCE OF PARTNERSHIP EXTENSION MODELS IMPLEMENTED IN TEA SMALLHOLDING SECTOR IN SRI LANKA

Tea smallholding sector provides the highest contribution to Sri Lankan tea industry. In recent years the productivity of tea smallholdings has shown a declining trend. This could mainly be attributed to limitations of providing an optimum extension service. The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) extension models have been introduced during the last decade as an alternative to a part of the tea smallholdings sector. This study was carried out to assess the performance of three such well-established partnership extension models and to identify the factors affecting their success. Three partnership extension models representing a factorybased model (FBM), an input supplier-based model (ISBM) and, a development agency-based model (DABM) were selected for the study. Six key components of a successful partnership i.e. trust and cohesiveness, motivation to participate, resource sharing, support to achieve long-term expectations, sharing technical information and, satisfaction about the model were used to assess the success of PPP. The primary data was collected using pretested questionnaire schedule followed by key informant interviews with randomly selected 90 smallholders (30 from each model) and with extension partners from each model. The findings revealed that productivity of tea smallholder lands in FBM is the highest when compared to that of other two models. This could be attributed to the more frequent contacts with smallholders and better provision of other services. Some success factors of the models viz. trust and cohesiveness, resource sharing, technical information sharing and motivation to work showed a significant relationship with age, experience, tea land extent and productivity (p0.05). Development agency model was highly rated by poorer tea smallholders, while those having higher land extent highly rated the other PPP models. Partnership models should serve equally to all tea smallholders and therefore, it could be recommended that partners of PPP AGROFOR International Journal, Vol. 5, Issue No. 1, 2020 113 extension model should further promote trust and cohesiveness, sharing of technical information and resources to establish successful partnerships.

Production of Non-Estate Tea Sector in Assam

The state of Assam is well known for tea production and among all the tea producing states in India it alone contributes more than 50% of total tea production. Production of tea includes agricultural operations as well as processing and manufacturing and hence it can be placed in both agriculture and industry. Tea has immense potential in generating income and employment. Though the history of Assam Tea is more than 180 years old, the participation of local people in this sector was very limited. Earlier establishment of a tea garden was thought to be a capitalist activity requiring massive investment. It is only in the late 1980s, local Assamese people came to know that tea plantation can be profitably undertaken even in small scale with low capital investment. This paved the way for the educated unemployed youth of Assam to undertake tea plantation in small scale. Since then tea plantation in small scale in Assam grew gradually complementing estate gardens by supplying green tea leaves. In the late 1990s due to various constraints, the estate sector tea production in Assam experienced low productivity with declining tea acreage. This has further pushed the rapid growth of small tea growers. The estate gardens of Assam also became more dependent in procuring green tea leaves from the tea smallholding by offering high price. During the period 1996-98 small tea growers of the state received as high as Rs. 22/- per kg of green leaves which did not last very long. Due to various reasons price of produce of small tea growers has fallen sharply after the year 2000. Since then though acreage and productivity of small tea growers shows continuous growth, the growers often complain about low price for their produce. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyse the trend of tea acreage, production and price received in the non-estate sector tea production in Assam.

Role and capacity of tea societies in the smallholding sector in Sri Lanka: an assessment based on the perceptions of extension officers

Rural Tea Development Societies (RTS) have been established by the Tea Small Holdings Development Authority (TSHDA) to address the critical issues faced by the tea smallholders. This study attempted to assess the present status and the capacity of the RTS and also identify the attributes that affect their capacity. The perception of Tea Inspectors (TIs), the key entities responsible for extension support for the smallholders, were collected from twelve Focus Group Discussions. The opinions of 65 TIs with over five years of work experiences (who interact with about 575 RTS in seven major tea smallholding area) were analysed by qualitatively. Results revealed, that the majority of RTS are not performing well due to internal factors such as poor leadership, lack of enthusiasm of members, lack of trustworthiness, status of the members, attitudes of members and also due to external factors such as ruralurban context, government benefits, the role of the extension agent, changes in the external environment, the effect of other organisation and politics. Contribution of the Main Officers, Management Committee and the membership is greater in RTS that are highly active than that of the poorly active RTS. The self-reliance capacity was low in the majority of the RTS and was highly dependent on TIs and the government’s assistance. Inbuilt weaknesses in the organisational culture were identified, mainly with respect to attitudes. The majority of RTSs are not goal-oriented. The majority of RTS are not dynamic in organisational performances. Finally, their key extension agents feel that critical intervention is required to overcome the above weaknesses.

Impact of organic farming on annual average income and cost of production of tea smallholders in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan government has planned to extend and promote organic tea cultivation in Sri Lanka through Haritha Lanka Programme which is the national cooperate plan to greening the Sri Lankan economy. Though positive environmental impacts of organic farming have been proven limited studies have been carried out in Sri Lanka to find out the impact of organic farming on the average annual income and cost of production (COP). Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the impact of adopting organic farming on annual average income and COP in high grown organic tea smallholdings (TSHs) in Sri Lanka. The data for the study were collected from a sample survey of 107 TSHs in four Grama Niladari divisions of Bandarawela secretariat of Badulla district. The study used two sample pooled t - test to identify the possible impact of adopting organic farming on two economic variables: annual average income and COP of TSHs. Ordinary Least Squared (OLS) estimate of a multiple linear regression was performed to estimate the impact of organic tea cultivation on the income and expenditure. The results suggest that the adoption of organic farming has strong positive impact on annual average income of TSHs while there is no significant impact of organic tea cultivation on cost of production and other off–farm income generations. The regression results further reveal that the annual average on–farm income of organically cultivated land is considerably higher than the non-organic TSHs in the study area. These findings conclude that adoption of organic farming improves the productivity of cultivated land, income and profit margin of the TSHs while maintaining the environmental sustainability.

Clientele satisfaction towards the public-private partnership extension model introduced for technology dissemination in tea smallholding sector in Sri Lanka

This empirical study aims to explore the potentials of a public–private partnership (PPP) extension model by appraising the partners’ willingness for such an extension model for effective transfer of technologies as a remedy to fill the gap in the extension service to tea smallholders in Sri Lanka. By assessing its strengths and weaknesses using opinions of key stakeholders, the formulated model was applied to six extension channels (two factory based, two society-based and two agro-inputs dealer oriented extension channels)of the tea smallholding sector in the Matara and Ratnapura Districts. A survey was conducted using 180 randomly selected smallholders and primary data on their social status, extent cultivated, yield and other field data, inputs, source of information, degree of collaboration and type of extension activities were collected, Regular monitoring of extension activities of the participants in the selected channels was carried out for a period of 12 months. The satisfaction and perceptions of the services received from the specific extension channel was assessed by using scales. The primary and secondary evaluation data at different stages of implementation were statistically analysed using SPSS package. The results confirm the smallholder satisfaction on effectiveness of collaborative approach PPP model in all dimensions (Frequency, Adequacy, Usefulness, Relevancy and overall satisfaction). The level of perception on partnership significantly correlated with their exposure to extension activities (p < 0.001) and their commitment (p<0.05) towards extension programs. The PPP extension model implemented in this study is proven as effective in all dimensions (p < 0.05). Hence, it is recommended that the organizations responsible develop management and fiscal procedures to adopt this model to better serve the smallholders.

Prospects and issues related to tea cultivation in mid country homegarden based tea smallholdings in a selected village in Sri Lanka

Smallholder tea sector plays a vital role in Sri Lanka’s economy and also in the rural economy. Smallholder tea lands are associated with homegardens in many areas, which have implications towards the development and maintenance of the homegardens. Thus, this study was focused on identifying prospects and issues in tea production of smallholders who have a tea-based homegarden in Aluthgama village, Nawalapitiya. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey using 100 growers to include the cost item, family involvement, extension service interaction, new technologies and issues. Chi square test, correlation and descriptive statistics were used in data analysis. The relative severity index (RSI) was calculated to determine the relative importance of various issues of smallholders. The tea was grown adjoining the homegarden or as a mixed cropping system. Tea was preferred due to the higher income from tea lands. Major cost items were fertilizer and labour for plucking. In more than 70% of households, at least one family member got involved in weeding followed by plucking to reduce cost of production. Out of the 15 identified problems, RSI value showed that climate effect is the highest influencing issue followed by low productivity, labour shortage, high cost for labour and land suitability. On the contrary, land ownership, buyer shortages, long crop duration and time taken to receive money after sales were not considered as matters in the studied area. High cost of production in tea cultivation is a challenge. Therefore, to reduce the cost of production and to overcome labour and land problem, involvement of family members was significant. In order to overcome uncertain future of tea, promotion and development of tea-based homegarden can be a viable approach to secure the food and income among smallholder farmers.