Global Family Farms Green Tea is grown at Kanchenjunga Tea Estate & Research Centre (KTE) in Eastern Nepal. Situated in the lap of Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world, KTE came together more than 34 years ago as a cooperative of 100+ local farmers in the region. Today, the tea garden thrives as a model for successful sustainable agriculture.
In the name of development, the Nepali government is pushing farmers to use chemical fertilizers and insecticides, which comes at a great cost to the health of the soil and environment—as well as the farmers themselves. “The food is being polluted,” says Deepak Prakash Baskota, Chairman of KTE.
This is why the local farmers of KTE came together to start a tea garden that would change the norms in agriculture and get back to a more natural use of the land. Unlike other tea estates that have only converted to organic after operating for years with chemical and synthetic insecticides, KTE has remained organic since its inception in 1984. Today, KTE is the only certified organic tea garden in Nepal.
