Monsoon Tea and GSMA are working to revolutionize the tea industry by compensating farmers for using regenerative farming methods to enhance and protect biodiversity. Photo credit: Monsoon Tea Company
As the primary driver for the destruction and erosion of natural land, agriculture is seen as biodiversity's biggest adversary. A solution to monocropping is the rise of regenerative agriculture and farming practices that restore biodiversity, combat climate change, and improve ecosystem services. However, one key element is necessary for regenerative theories to become actionable strategies that increase biodiversity in the coffee and tea industries—the collection of robust and reliable data. The Biodiversity Traceability Project, created by Monsoon Tea Company and the Global System for Mobile Technology (GSMA), endeavors to provide the tea industry with the data it needs to enact credible results.
Turning Ambitions into Actionable Strategies
Before regenerative practices can make a difference, the first step is incentivizing the farmers to adopt them. Organic, biodiverse, and regenerative farming methods require a lot of trial and error to discover which practices yield the best results for each farm. One way to encourage farmers to adopt these methods is to provide them with monetary compensation for their strenuous efforts. Whether through higher retail prices due to Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) or through carbon credits, data collection is the key to monetary compensation.
In an interview with STiR, Annabel Kalmar, founder of the Regenerative Tea Farming Action Project, said, “Comprehensive data is necessary to establish carbon emissions baselines for tea, but the data gathered by third-party sustainability providers is not very strong in this area. Generating the right data, metrics, and variations—seeing what works and measuring it over time—is very valuable.”
Kenneth Rimdahl, founder of Monsoon Tea Company, has worked for over a decade with ‘Forest Friendly Tea’ in northern Thailand. Dedicated to protecting nature through tea production, Monsoon Tea only sources leaves from farmers who gather tea from natural forest settings, surrounded by a wide range of animal and plant biodiversity that doesn't require the use of fertilizers, pesticides, or irrigation systems.
Working to increase biodiversity and reforest the mountains of northern Thailand, Monsoon Tea and the AI Center at the Institute of Technology in Thailand have partnered with GSMA to use their new biodiversity tracking app as part of the GSMA Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience and Adaptation. The GSMA Innovation Fund is designed to help accelerate the testing, adoption, and scalability of digital innovations that enable vulnerable populations to adapt to climate change and strengthen biodiversity.
The Biodiversity Traceability Project is a system for collecting data that can be used to calculate carbon or biodiversity credits in the future. The traceability is centered on an application and cloud solution that follows each tea collected by Monsoon Tea from its origin in the forests of northern Thailand through the stages of production—fresh leaves to high-quality tea. By mobilizing complex data on the origin of each tea and presenting its positive impact on biodiversity and community development, consumers are empowered to use that information to buy teas that revolutionize the industry.
The traceability system uses solar-powered sensors to record the sound of the tea forests and transmit the daily recordings over mobile networks. The sounds are analyzed by cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence programs that identify the exact insect, bird, and animal species present. Algorithms then use the species counts to assess the level of biodiversity on the five levels of the Rimdahl scale. The score given to each batch of Monsoon Tea produced will be clearly labeled so buyers know the exact level of biodiversity their tea is coming from, allowing them to make purchases that support their values.
Benefiting the Farmers
“Our most important stakeholders are the farmers in the mountains who grow ‘Forest Friendly’ tea and act as guardians of the forests,” says Kenneth Rimdahl. “We work closely together with them to ensure that the technological solutions are adapted to their needs and support them to build the necessary skills to use our mobile applications through tailored training programs.”
The traceability app is developed in close collaboration with the farmers. As the key users of the app, they have been involved in each stage of the development process to ensure the technology actually benefits them.
“We are using the traceability app to empower the farmers to show the uniqueness of their ancient way of growing tea in the forests to the whole world, and in particular, how this way of growing tea is the future for sustainable tea production that enhances biodiversity,” adds Rimdahl.
The data collected through the app enables farmers to demonstrate the biodiversity service they’re performing through sustainable tea harvesting and rewards them for preserving and enhancing biodiversity. The Biodiversity Traceability Project uses technology and data collection to transform how tea is grown and made in northern Thailand and eventually globally.