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Mumbai Feb. 13 Poabs Organic Estate, a part of Poabs Group, at Nellayampathy in Palghat district of Kerala, has emerged as the country's first plantation company to bag the prestigious `Sustainability Award' for 2007.

The award is instituted by the Speciality Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and the selection is made from dozens of applications from around the world.

"Your unique holistic self-sustainable closed eco-system with focus on biodiversity helps to set a new standard in our industry by addressing some of the Millennium Development Goals," SCAA said in its communication to the company.

The plantation, spread over 500 hectares in the hills of Nellayampathy and employing over 700 workers, is the largest internationally certified perennial multi-crop organic farm in the world.

In addition to arabica and robusta coffee, the plantation produces tea (orthodox and CTC) and green tea, cardamom and pepper (black, white, red and green).

Criteria

Since 2003, the SCAA Sustainability Awards are given every year to qualifying projects that fit four main criteria namely: Outstanding measures to include all or several of aspects of social, economic and environmental development; projects that are replicable and scalable; and projects that inspire other industry members.

Kerala's plantation sector comprising crops such as coffee, tea, rubber, oil palm and pepper provides livelihood for several thousand workers, mostly unskilled.

However, the sector often comes under attack from forest officials who are unable to distinguish between plantation and forest. Environmentalists too train their guns on the plantation sector on grounds of threat to ecology.

"The Sustainability Award won by Poabs Estate from an independent international agency demonstrates that plantation companies in India can contribute to sustainable farming and deserve policy support," commented an analyst.

The group has won several domestic and global awards for coffee production in the last few years.

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