Tea Picker, Red Hills Estate, Nilgiri, India
This photo shows a tea picker holding some sort of metal implement, in fields of tea at Red Hills Estate, located near Ooty in Nilgiri, Tamil Nadu, India.
According to the photographer, this woman was 22 years old in the photo, taken in May, 2005, and at the time had 2 children and earned 120 rupees per day, while working 10 hours, in which she would pick 60 kilograms of tea. These daily earnings are roughly equivalent to $2.75 USD, which, adjusting for inflation, would be about $3.47 per day.
This can give you an idea of the tremendous disparity in earnings and salaries/wages in major areas of tea production, relative to the wealthier Western countries that import and consume this tea.
Buying high-quality artisan teas can help address these disparities because a greater portion of the profits reaches the producers, contrasting with flavored teas that use lower-quality base teas, where more of the profits go to companies in already-wealthy Western countries.
