Fairtrade NAPP Conducts Training on HREDD and Fairtrade Committee Roles at Parry Agro Industries Tea Estate in the Nilgiris, India

Estate management and worker representatives usually meet Fairtrade requirements from different sides of the same process. On 12 August 2026, at the Carolyn Factory in Pandalur, Gudalur, they worked through those requirements in a single half day programme organised by Fairtrade NAPP at Parry Agro Industries Ltd (Mango Range Group), a Fairtrade certified Hired Labour tea estate in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu.

The first session took the management team through Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence, an area where expectations from buyers, from European legislation and from the Fairtrade Standard are all moving in the same direction. The second session brought together worker members of the Fairtrade Premium Committee and the Fairtrade Compliance Committee, the two bodies through which workers on a certified estate decide how the Fairtrade Premium is invested and check that Fairtrade requirements are being met day to day. By the end of the programme, both groups were working from a shared vocabulary, which matters because due diligence and compliance on an estate depend on managers and workers recognising the same risks and the same responsibilities.

Due Diligence Explained in Terms the Estate Can Act On

For the management representatives, the session began with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and moved to the European Union Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, before unpacking the five steps of Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence. Setting the international frameworks alongside the HREDD chapter of the Fairtrade Standard allowed the team to see how one set of expectations connects to the other, and where their own systems already respond to them. Instead of treating due diligence as external paperwork, participants left able to describe it as a sequence of steps their estate can own.

Risk Assessment Tools That Travel from the Session to the Factory Floor

The management session then turned practical. Case studies on preventing, mitigating and remediating risk, supported by examples and videos, showed how an assessment is prepared and carried out, and the tools used for HREDD risk assessment were worked through in detail. Participants came away able to think about the factory and the different areas of the plantation as distinct settings, each with its own risks and its own preventive and corrective measures. That distinction is what turns a risk assessment from a document into a working routine.

Fairtrade Explained from First Principles for Committee Members

The session with the worker members of the Fairtrade Premium Committee and the Fairtrade Compliance Committee started at the beginning: what Fairtrade is, what certification means for a Hired Labour organisation such as theirs, and the range of products traded under Fairtrade terms around the world. Placing their own tea estate within that wider picture gave committee members the context to explain Fairtrade to colleagues who are not on a committee, which widens the circle of workers who understand what the certification carries with it, including the rights, responsibilities and benefits that apply to them at work.

A Premium Committee Confident in Its Own Composition and Decisions

Much of the session was given to how the Fairtrade Premium Committee is composed, how it is meant to function democratically, and what its members are responsible for, followed by the management of the Fairtrade Premium itself. Workers on a certified estate decide together how the Premium is invested, and that decision carries more weight when every committee member understands the process behind it, from representing colleagues to recording and accounting for the way the Premium is used. Members left clearer on where their authority begins and how to exercise it on behalf of the workforce they represent.

Compliance as a Year Round Practice Led by Workers

The closing part of the session looked at the Fairtrade Compliance Committee, its composition and its role in making sure Fairtrade Standards are followed on the estate. Members worked through how to develop their own checklists and how to conduct internal audits, which is the committee’s central task. With that practical knowledge, monitoring can run steadily through the year and rest with the workers themselves, so the committee arrives at each external audit with its own record of what has already been checked and improved.

Carrying the Learning into the Next Season

Participants from both sessions asked that programmes of this kind continue regularly, so that new committee members and other employees can build the same understanding as terms rotate and responsibilities change hands. Fairtrade NAPP will continue to work alongside Parry Agro Industries Ltd (Mango Range Group) and other Hired Labour organisations across South India on due diligence, committee governance and Premium management, adding practical exercises such as risk assessment and internal audit planning as the requirements around human rights and environmental due diligence continue to develop. Certification is a journey rather than a finished achievement, and sessions like this one are how estates and Fairtrade NAPP keep moving along it together.