Tea is regarded as a valuable and very special Chinese product by the government, which controlled its export more strictly and for a longer time than that of most other products after the implementation of economic reforms in the 1980s. Until the mid-1990s tea growers could still sell their harvests only to state-owned tea processors and exporters and they had no influence on price determination or the amounts they could sell. Due to bureaucratic obstacles and the long economic seclusion of China, foreign trade picked up only slowly and the farmers were repeatedly unable to sell all their tea or were paid only very low prices regardless of quality. In the mid 1990s the central government finally permitted the foundation of privately owned tea processors and exporters.

Poverty and good soil both had a part in the fact that almost no mineral fertilizer or pesticides had been used in the Dazhangshan region, so everything was already prepared for a quick organic certification of most of the tea gardens by the Chinese official “green label” certifier as well as an official European certifier. In 1997, local investors founded the “Jiangxi Wuyuan Dazhangshan Organic Food Company Ltd.” and shipped their first certified organic green tea to Europe in 1998. In the budding European organic green tea market, Dazhangshan tea reached a high of almost 60% of the market share in 1999.

At the suggestion mainly of German buyers the Dazhangshan Organic Tea Farmers’ Association was founded in October 2000 with the declared objective of “Promoting organic cultivation of tea and other organic agricultural products of the region; promoting sales; researching cultivation methods and new techniques; giving farmers a more stable income; providing a secure and satisfying working environment for all members; improving living conditions and promoting the development of the association and its members.”

The association grows tea on 17,940 mu (1,196 hectares, 15 mu = 1 ha), and harvests approximately 300 tons of processed tea annually, of which almost 80 per cent is exported. Varieties include different qualities of loose green tea and jasmine tea and to a lesser extent gunpowder, fannings and black tea.

Almost 4,400 farmer families with roughly 14,600 dependants are registered association members. They are democratically organised in 27 local groups in the Dazhangshan area. The members are mostly small-scale farmers growing 2 to 20 mu of tea (0.13 – 1.3 ha); a few families own between 20 to 50 mu (3.3 ha) and only one member grows tea on 600 mu (40 ha). The one-child policy has been put into effect here less severely than in the cities, so that some families have two children. The fathers’ parents also frequently live with the family, which thus totals up to between three and six people per household. Taking care of the fields and harvesting is done almost exclusively by family members.

In the year of its foundation, the Dazhangshan Farmers’ Association applied to the international certifier “Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International” (FLO) for certification and it was Fairtrade certified after detailed inspections in 2001. Starting with small quantities, but with increasing sales year on year, Dazhangshan tea products, which have the Fairtrade Certification Mark, are now marketed in Europe (mainly Germany, France and the UK), Japan and North America.

Depending on quality and variety, buyers of Fairtrade Tea have to pay a price that covers all production costs and an additional Fairtrade premium of 0.5 to 1 Euro per kilogram for projects of the association. Altogether, 57,000 Euros in additional income had thus been collected by 2005. Elected delegates of the members decided on the use of the money and in 2006 all members were additionally asked to hand in further ideas for projects.

From the start, delegates and members were unified in their decision to appropriate a large part of the money to the education of the farmers’ children. Education has always enjoyed a very high esteem in Chinese society and opens the door to a better life. Meanwhile, the competition between millions of Chinese children to get into the better universities and subsequently to have the chance of a good job has become fiercer over the years. Children from urban areas have a great advantage in this rivalry because almost all of them attend extra private classes in the evenings and at weekends, be it English language, computer classes, or even art and music which are supposed to further the development of the child. In the standardized national exams to get into high school and university, children from poorer regions and the countryside very often lag behind. The Association therefore decided to spend 20,000 Euros on building an annex to a central middle boarding school in the Dazhangshan area in which the school offers additional classes, a computer room and a library to give children the opportunity to raise their educational level. The school is attended by 600 pupils, many of whom are farmers’ children.

As a second measure, the association has put up a fund to support the children’s enrolment in high school and university. High school and university fees in China amount to 800 and 2,000 Euros a year respectively which are prohibitive costs for some of the families, whose yearly income in some cases stays below 100 Euros. Special credits for the poor help to pay their tuition fees, but this does not cover any costs for materials like pens, books and paper; the occasional visit home; medicines or even food. Therefore in 2005 the association started to give 110 Euros to children of poorer members who enrol in high school or university as a one-off payment. This greatly relieves the burden on the families. Altogether, in 2005 and 2006 230 children received this support, of which 119 enrolled in high school and 111 in different universities.

The remaining funds and the additional income through Fairtrade in the coming years will continue to be used mainly on education; some money will go into a micro -credit scheme for members; the quality of the tea processing in the villages will be improved by training and, if necessary, by providing new and better equipment. Many growers also wish to have training in organic cultivation methods to improve both the quality of their tea on the plant as well as the crop yield in order to raise their income and to keep them competitive. Some members have pointed out the need for a better general infrastructure.