Organic tea cultivation is fast emerging as an alternate source of income for small and marginal farmers in the Darjeeling hills. The founder of the locally based Specialised Agriculture and Indus trial Consultancy on Tea and veteran tea planter, Harish Mukhia, says that his firm has recently supplied good quality tea seeds which, unlike traditional tea, do not require chemical fertilisers for growth. Mukhia also claims that the income generated by cultivating this tea would be 10 to 15 times higher than that generated by fertilised agricultural produce.