Meishan, Oct. 14 (US) – Shen Chun Yi looks at the frayed tea fields in Taiwan’s picturesque southern town of Meishan and sighs.
Last year’s once-in-a-century drought was followed by heavy rains this year, destroying its crop and leaving tea growers in Taiwan struggling to adapt to harsh weather changes, Reuters reported.
“Climate is the thing that we can’t control at least in running our tea plantations,” Shen, 28, told Reuters. “We really depend on heaven to eat.”
Taiwan’s tea production doesn’t come close to matching that of China or India, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality, particularly the high-quality mountainous Oolong variety that Meishan specializes in.
Tea has been grown in the mountains around Meishan since the island was part of China’s Qing Dynasty in the 19th century. Industry matured and expanded under Imperial Japan from 1895-1945.
Shane, who returned to run the family farm after his father died of cancer four years ago, is now working on strategies for coping with harsh weather, including penetrating deep into the bushes to search for puddles to deliver water to the fields.
Another problem that severe weather brings are pests that attack young tea buds, said Lin Xiu Ruti, a government researcher who assists Meishan farmers.
“Pests love drought and heat,” she said at her experimental fields in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan. “Previously, it wasn’t hot until around May and July, but now it’s April, it’s really hot.”
Lynn works to educate farmers about the pests that are breeding with climate change, and how to recognize and manage them.
Its chief, Chief Agricultural Engineer Tsai Hsien Tsung, said that they began monitoring climate changes in the tea country four years ago, and have already seen the flavor of the crop change with the seasons.
“Temperatures are rising, the rain is dropping, and there is less moisture in the air,” he said. “Tea is very delicate.”
However, whether or not what is happening in the tea country of Taiwan is directly related to climate change remains an area of debate.
Chen Yongming, head of the climate change division at Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, said drought cannot be blamed for climate change.
“We can only say that the chance of the drought continuing will increase,” he said.
Chen estimates he will harvest only 600kg of tea this year, half of last year’s crop, due to drought and rain, but says he is determined not to get hit.
“It is these trees that have fed and raised me. In return, I want to do my best to take good care of them.”
MI