Lipton's Sustainable Tea Agriculture Project in Turkey

Sustainable Tea Agriculture Project Launches in Turkey

Turkey is the world's fifth largest tea producing country in the world, and has the fourth largest tea market. However, growing tea as it is grown previously in Turkey is not the most sustainable and therefore not the most efficient way to grow tea in Turkey. Unilever's Lipton brand has started a sustainable tea agriculture project that has launched in Turkey for this reason, and because Turkey is one of the company's main centers of tea agriculture. Lipton has teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to introduce measures aimed at improving the "social, economic and environmental impacts of tea production"(1).

Training Tea Growers in Sustainable Practices

According to Unilever's website, 15,000 Turkish tea growers will receive one-to-one training to help them move to sustainable agricultural practices by 2014 under this initiative – and eventually become Rainforest Alliance certified. Also, 2,000 training sessions will provide tea growers with information on sustainability-related topics such as erosion control, waste management, work safety, record-keeping, biodiversity, fertilization and pruning (1). Lipton will also join forces with the Regional Chamber of Agriculture to establish a soil analysis laboratory in the country's tea-growing region near the Black Sea to solve the nations dilemma of poor fertilizer use. Lastly, Lipton will also take tea growers' health into consideration, providing around 5,000 women growers with health services targeting back, spine, and joint pain (1).

References: (1) "Lipton's Sustainable Tea in Turkey." Unilever Global Company Website.<http://www.unilever.com/brands-in-action/detail/Lipton-s-sustainable-tea-in-    Turkey/292029/>. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.