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Listening to the Frontlines: Markzin Anchors Climate Research with Assam's Tea Garden Communities

Rajarshi Singha
2 min read
Listening to the Frontlines: Markzin Anchors Climate Research with Assam's Tea Garden Communities

The people who sustain India's tea industry are already living climate change. We went to listen.

At Markzin, in partnership with the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), our work with tea garden communities through Unnatea — our digital platform empowering workers to access government social protection schemes — has always been rooted in one principle: listen first, build with purpose.

This time, we took that principle into a different kind of study.

The Research Initiative

In partnership with De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester, UK, the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), and McLeod Russel India Ltd, Markzin anchored a qualitative research initiative to understand how tea garden communities in Assam experience climate change — not through datasets, but through their own narratives.

Through in-depth conversations with workers and community members across Dirial and Dirok Tea Estates — conducted via the Udayini Programme (ETP) — what we heard was striking:

Key Findings

  • A landscape visibly transforming — shade trees disappearing, rainfall patterns they've known for generations no longer holding true, water sources receding

  • Direct impacts on health, harvests, and daily working conditions — changing seasons disrupting the routines that sustain livelihoods

  • A quiet but mounting burden on women, who carry the weight of both the garden and the home

  • And yet — remarkable resilience. Communities planting trees, organizing waste drives, adapting routines, and above all, investing everything in education for the next generation

What This Means

This research reinforces what we've seen firsthand through Unnatea — that tea garden communities are resourceful, deeply aware of the changes around them, and ready to engage with solutions that respect their reality. Our role is to keep building tools and generating evidence that amplify their voice.

Acknowledgements

A sincere thank you to Prof. Raghu Raghavan and the DMU team for the academic leadership, our field researchers for their sensitive and thorough work, the Dirial and Dirok Tea Estate management for their cooperation, and every community member who trusted us with their story.

Climate adaptation in the tea sector must start with the people at its heart. We're committed to ensuring their experiences shape the conversation.

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