This book aims to examine the various aspects of the tea smallholdings of Assam. Discussing the contexts, space as well as the constraints, it analyses how the tea smallholdings in Assam are now placed to usher the tea sector as in a vibrant and dominant production mode.

Further assessing the performance of the estate sector tea plantations of Assam over the past few decades, it explores what has gone wrong on policy and managerial fronts forcing the sector to follow a somewhat dependent path. It reveals the crisis situation in the smallholding sector, largely due to pricing of the green tea leaves and deficiencies of processing infrastructures. It is also pointed out that in the tea smallholdings flexible use of labour in the key in raising efficiency and consolidation.