Kel Kelly and Peggy Carswell are two community development workers who live on Vancouver Island - off the west coast of Canada - for part of the year, and in the northeastern corner of Assam, India for the remainder of the year.
Since 1999, we've been meeting and working with tea growers in Assam's Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur districts. With the help of volunteers and friends from Canada and other parts of India, we've been able to provide information, technical assistance and encouragement that's making it possible for young growers like Rajesh Singpho and Gobin Hazarika to grow, process and market their organically-grown tea on a small-scale basis.
We work in cooperation with Fertile Ground: East/West Sustainability Network, a non-profit organization that has established a 2 acre demonstration garden in Digboi, Assam. At the Adarsh Seuj Prakalpa resource centre, farmers, tea growers, students, agricultural extension staff and people from nearby towns and villages learn to make compost, to identify and control insect pests and to take a more eco-friendly approach to growing crops.
We hope this site will provide a forum for people to learn about some of the challenges and successes these small growers are facing in this very beautiful and culturally-diverse part of the world.
Rajesh Singpho and his family live in Enthem village, close to the India/Burma border. Tea has been a part of the culture of the Singpho tribe for centuries. Gathered from tea trees growing in the nearby jungle, the leaves were heated briefly in a metal pan and then sun-dried. The tea was then packed into lengths of green bamboo which were placed directly in a wood fire for a prescribed period of time. 
