Solidaridad: Lestari tea certification set to become the Indonesian domestic standard

Solidaridad: Lestari tea certification set to become the Indonesian domestic standard

UTRETCH, 14-Jun-2017 — /EuropaWire/ — New goals for the next four years seek to position the Lestari tea certification as the Indonesian domestic standard. The new vision for the programme is also designed to provide guidance for policies that incentivize sustainable investment in the tea sector. Solidaridad, Business Watch Indonesia (BWI) and National Reference Group developed this sustainability certification scheme tailored to the needs of the Indonesian tea industry.

From 2016 to 2020, the Lestari certification programme will focus on:

• Capacity building of CSOs and tea industry stakeholders to develop, adopt and implement a sustainability roadmap (Vision 2025) that enhances the competitiveness of Indonesian tea industry.
• Building consensus for adopting Lestari sustainability standard as the national tea standard by 2020 and recognized as such by the Indonesian government.
• Smallholders that are more competitive and sustainable.
• Strengthening communication among stakeholders.

Since its start in 2012, the programme has shown significant progress indicated by several deliverables. Lestari has certified 34,000 smallholder farmers with approximately 17,000 hectares of land. As many as 400 farmers were also trained to be leaders while seven estates have also been documented and certified under this programme. In addition, the Indonesian government has openly declared their support for smallholder factories in two provinces of Central and West Java.

Although this Lestari certification programme has encountered numerous challenges on the ground such as the increase rate of land conversion that significantly affects production, the government of Indonesia has been very supportive. In addition, more than 70% of the consumers have committed to support the sustainable tea products across the country, according to the market survey done by BWI. This can be seen in the purchasing pattern in the market.

Learn more about Solidaridad’s global tea programme.

SOURCE: Solidaridad

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