Although the idea of a pesticide-free bio-organic tea is catching up of late, it is yet a long way before tea companies having gardens in Darjeeling, Assam or the Nilgiris go in for certain conversions.

According to JC Pande, vice chairman of the Indian Bio Organic Tea Association (IBOTA), a newly formed association of organic tea growers, the adoption of ecological farming is not as simple as one may presume.

"It is a highly knowledge intensive, labour-oriented and complex system integrating several organic recycling processes. A study of some of the committed ecological farmers in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, UP and Himachal revealed that these farmers were self starters and highly preserving in nature", saidPande.

It may be noted that in India, only about 16-odd tea gardens have attempted to go fully organic. The transition stage may pose a great challenge, as there is no availability of ready packages and losses yielded during the transition phase will have to be compensated by adequate back-up methods, said Pande.

In the cultivation of organic teas, creating a sufficient biomass is required for a hectare of crop grown organically. It is also required to sustain the biomass in the soil. However, the cost of production automatically rises as a lot of manual labour is required for the process. Thereafter, productivity trends have registered an increase in most of the tea estates which have gone in for conversion. Initial high costs and productivity drops tend to stabilise at a later stage.

According to Pande, who also happens to belong to the Goodricke Group Ltd , a company with maximum gardens into organic teas, the need of the hour to adopt a mission-mode approach to promote the eco-farming concept. Thiscould be done by setting up information shops and other intellectually stimulating knowledge-sharing extension programmes, he added.

A highly dedicated and trained eco-technology task force should be created, to promote integrated intensive farming system. This should be backed up by a strong research and development system, contended Pande.