Industry

Climate change to eat into Kenya’s tea production

tea

Tea picking. Climate change will enhance suitability of tea production in Embu, Meru, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Murang’a and Kiambu. File

Climate change will drastically reduce Kenya’s tea production over the next 40 years with suitable lands being pushed further up the altitude, denting earnings from one of the country’s top hard currency sources.

Scientists from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) said during a global conference that land under tea will reduce by 42 per cent by 2050, creating excess capacity in tea factories dependent on the catchments.

Areas West of the Rift Valley particularly Nandi, Kericho, and Gucha will be the most affected according to the study titled Future Climate Scenarios for Kenya’s Tea Growing Areas by Dr Peter Laderach, Dr Audberto Quiroga, Dr Jason Gordon, and Dr Anton Eitzinger.
The study says producers in Bomet, Kisii, and Nyamira will need to adapt their farm management to the new conditions.

“Producers here will need to carefully analyse the implications and implement adaptation and diversification strategies,” says their report.
However, the report notes, climate change will enhance suitability of tea production in Embu, Meru, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Murang’a and Kiambu. “There will be areas where today no tea is grown but which in the future will become suitable, especially the higher altitudes around Mount Kenya.” However, many of these areas are protected and it is not advised that forests be cleared to cultivate tea, as was done with the Nyayo Tea Zones in the 1980s.

“Climate change not only brings bad news, but also opens up new opportunities. The producers that will stay in business will be those that are prepared for change and have knowledge to adapt,” it adds.

The scientists were making presentations at the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya in Kericho. The seminar was organised by the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) and the German International Cooperation (GIZ).

The report says the two organisations aim to increase Kenyan tea producer’s resilience to climate change, to secure their livelihoods and make them more environmentally and economically sustainable.

The two partners will over the next three years train 10,000 farmers on the most appropriate adaptation techniques,” they said. The scientists said Kenya’s yearly and monthly rainfall will increase and the yearly and monthly minimum and maximum temperatures will increase moderately by 2020.”

The overall climate would become less seasonal in terms of variation throughout the year, with temperatures in some districts increasing by about one degree Celsius by 2020 and by 2.3 degrees Celsius by 2050.

“The implications are that the distribution of suitabilities within the current tea growing areas in Kenya for tea production will decrease quite seriously by 2050. The suitable areas will be in increasingly higher attitudes,” the report notes. It adds that areas that retain some suitability will see decreases of between 35 per cent and 55 per cent compared to today’s suitability of 60 and 80 per cent.

It says, an optimum tea producing zone is at an altitude of between 1,500 and 2,100 metres above sea level, adding that by 2050 this will increase to an altitude of between 2,000 and 2,300 metres above sea level.

Diversification

“Increasing altitude compensates for the increase in temperature. Compared with today, by 2050 areas at altitudes of between 1,400 and 2,000 metres above sea level will suffer the highest decrease in suitability and areas around 2,300 metres above sea level will suffer the highest increase in suitability,” says the report.

The experts recommended crop diversification, adding that coffee performs similar to tea and would not be a good alternative.

As a replacement of tea, the study says, “for more than 90 per cent of these sites maize and cabbage will remain constant and peas will be much more suitable on 97 per cent of the sites. By 2050, passion fruit will be much more suitable on 51 per cent of the sites and bananas will account for 14 per cent.”

The director of research of the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya, Prof Francis Wachira, said researchers were working towards developing viable adaptation strategies including developing drought tolerant tea varieties.

He told the conference that research geared towards climate change mitigation, and opportunities like carbon credit trading, should be prioritised.

“What is important is to increase adoption of developed adaptation strategies to close the gap between research and actual farm production.”

Prof Wachira said climate change mitigation requires site specific solutions and that, “though the picture presented was not encouraging local adaptation strategies will be developed.”