Sorry, not my topic.

Dear Kralawi Sita,                                                        Dated 24th June 2015

Congratulations for your concerns for small tea holders. Besides the points you have made, I am confident that small tea plantation holders could maintain their garden more organically there by contributing to reduce Global Warming, promoting agro-forestry, environmental conservation, sustainable production through ecological agriculture etc.

Myself and my associates have been associated to tea plantation crop since 1990. We have several publications. We have done work in on-field situation having plot size of one ha area. Our experience have encouraged us to give the above statement.  Small holders of tea is other wise an alternative to home garden system.

I  am attaching few publications and a brief biodata for your personal reference. If interested you may interact through my e-mail.

Thank you again and wish you all the best,

B. K. Senapati

Dear Sita, 

I cant comment on much about your question but I read some article a long ago that I can share with you. 

Please have a look into the following links 

http://isdsnet.com/ijds-v1n3-8.pdf

http://humidtropics.cgiar.org/maize-pigs-plums-tea-linking-smallholder-farmers-markets-northwest-vietnam/

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=F4gcBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA543&lpg=PA543&dq=self+reliance+on+tea+smallholder&source=bl&ots=C0Iehcslq2&sig=KUIM8W2fXSi8cWD5ogo_GKaheDk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ns-LVcirIIeJuASkqqDQAQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=self%20reliance%20on%20tea%20smallholder&f=false

Thanks 

Though I haven't specifically looked at the small tea growers, I have done some work on the sustainability indicators of small rubber growers in the context of North East India and Thailand. You may see the paper details on the Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=yA8TQ48AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao