Page 34 - Respond 2020 Magazine

RESPOND

PROTECTING EAST

AFRICAN TEA EXPORTS

AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

frica produces almost 23% of global “In a good season I might be able to harvest 600 kilograms
tea exports. In particular, tea is one of tea in a month,” says Mary Muthoni, a smallholder tea
Aof the mainstay exports for Kenya farmer from Nyeri, about 150km north of the Kenyan capital
Nairobi. “But in a drought year, I might only get 100 kilograms
and Malawi and an important economic a month.”
commodity contributing 26% of Kenya’s
and 8% of Malawi’s export earnings. Kenya If conditions continue to warm, it’s likely to impact both
the quality and quantity of the tea, according to climate
is one of the top three tea exporters in the researchers. Less resilient plantations will see crops wilting
world, whose main tea export countries are or bushes dying off, which could undercut all tea exports to
Pakistan (37%), Egypt (17%) and the United their all-important global tea markets. “Droughts are getting worse in parts of the region, which tea-growing period is in a four-month window (80 percent of
Kingdom (9%). Malawi’s tea crops are found But many tea farmers in Kenya and Malawi are already taking has implications for the kinds of varieties being developed its tea grows from December to early April) while in Kenya
in blended teas and are mainly exported to action, according to environmental research fellow Dr Neha by the tea industry,” says Mittal, “for instance, tea varieties conditions allow tea bushes to grow all year round.
developed in response to a 1992 drought in Malawi were still
South Africa (37%), the United States (28%) Mittal from the University of Leeds’ School of Earth and hit hard by the more severe drought in the area in 2005. As This kind of site-specific climate information means that tea
Environment.
and the United Kingdom (15%). temperatures continue to rise, future droughts across the growers can better understand the future climate uncertainty
“Some farmers are starting to replant their existing region could get worse.” and change their farming management practices, according
Leaves from Kenya’s Rift Valley plantations are famous for plantations with new strains of tea bushes that are resilient to Professor Andrew Dougill at the University of Leeds’
their colour and taste, drawing buyers from some of the to drought and pests,” she says. Farmers are also planting Mittal is working with local smallholder farmers and bigger School of Earth and Environment. This includes soil and
biggest tea houses like Taylors of Harrogate, Tetley, Twinings, shade trees in hotter areas to shield bushes during extreme tea estates through the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) water conservation measures, replanting with resilient tea
and Unilever. Malawi’s finest give good depth and a distinctive programme, a cross-disciplinary group of researchers varieties, and changing plucking methods, says Dougill.
heat, and reforesting slopes uphill of plantations to stabilise
reddish colour, according to aficionados and tea blenders. moisture levels in soils. working in Africa and the United Kingdom, to provide climate “Already, farmers are responding by putting irrigation
information that zooms in closely on different regions, and
But what is the future of this important source of export Tea plantations can’t move into cooler, high-altitude regions gives detailed projections of how temperature and rainfall schemes in places, reforesting up mountain slopes to help
income for these two countries, if climate change threatens conserve water, and putting in shade trees in more vulnerable
as a way of retreating from the anticipated warmer future might change over the next half century or more.
tea growing here? Temperatures in East Africa are expected to climate, because most areas are already planted as far up the areas,” says the TRFCA’s Katungwe.
rise, and rainfall patterns are going to be less predictable than slopes as the countries’ terrain allows. “Most of the global climate models work at a large scale, at The site-specific climate information can support the tea
before as the climate across the region continues to change. hundreds of square kilometres,” explains Mittal, “but farmers industry in East Africa to respond ahead of future climate
“In Kenya’s Rift Valley, the mountains above the tea in these different tea growing areas need information that’s
Weather station records already show that temperatures changes and ensure their continued presence as key tea
plantations are covered with natural forests,” says Mittal. more local in scale. To do this, we are combining weather
have been increasing across the region for the last three “These are the country’s ‘water towers’, which help, generate station observations with a number of climate models.” One exporters globally.
decades, and rainfall is becoming less predictable with rainfall over the mountains. These have to be protected of the climate models used has been developed specifically For more watch the video of Future Climate for Africa’s
longer dry spells - a worrying trend tea farmers say is already above all else.” for Africa, called the CP4-Africa model, and zooms in to groundbreaking work documenting the impacts of climate
impacting their yields. a scale of about 4.5km by 4.5km grid. This allows climate change on tea production www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-
In Malawi, most tea is grown around the foothills of Mount
modellers to get a better picture of local scale weather qGXRnIHH4O8gqeS0lwUA
Mulanje - essentially a giant block of rock.
processes and likely extremes such as storm events.
www.futureclimateafrica.org
Mittal and colleagues are working on a collaboration between
The climate information this team is generating is at seasonal
farmers, tea research institutes, local universities, and local
scale, allowing for more region-specific planning. Malawi’s
and international climate modellers, to help the industry plan
for tea production in a hotter and less predictable future
climate.
Planning for 50 years or more from now
CLIMATE INFORMATION FOR RESILIENT TEA
Tea farming calls for long-term planning, according to
PRODUCTION (CI4TEA) PROJECT
Chikondi Katungwe, senior agronomist at the Tea Research
Foundation of Central Africa (TRFCA).
CI4Tea aims to identify key climatic characteristics
“The economic life of a tea bush is about 60 years,”
she says. “It takes three to five years for a bush to get that influence tea production. The project investigates
established, and another seven to nine years before a farmer various adaptation methods to support long-term
planning in tea production. It builds on the work of the
starts to get returns.” The bush should still be productive
for several decades, but with the climate changing so fast, Future Climate For Africa research consortia HyCRISTAL
research institutes are in a race against rising temperatures
to ensure they get new drought and heat resilient varieties and UMFULA and is led by the University of Leeds,
United Kingdom.
to farmers so that they can keep adapting their plantations
to be more robust.
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