Climate change affecting India's famed Assam tea. - 8 Jan 2010  
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While the high hills and normally abundant rainfall in northeastern Assam state create an ideal environment for the region's distinctive tea, scientists have noted a 20% decrease in rainfall and a full one degree temperature rise over the past 60 years.

According to the Tea Board of India, tea yields have also decreased, from 512,000 tons in 2007 to just 445,000 in 2009. Furthermore, these decreases have occurred despite the addition of new areas for planting as well as entirely new tea gardens.

Dr. Mridul Hazarika, director of Tocklai Tea Research, the world's oldest tea research station, stated, “This is an indication of the seriousness of the threat.”

Dr. Hazarika, Tocklai Tea Research, Tea Board of India, and growers, we appreciate this alert to the disturbing changes experienced by Assam growers. May your insightful information help bring developments that assist the region while governments and individuals alike act urgently to reverse climate change.

Addressing the issue of unpredictable weather conditions and their effect on harvests during a May 2009 videoconference in Togo, Supreme Master Ching Hai highlighted the most sustainable practice needed to ensure the restoration of environmental stability.

Supreme Master Ching Hai : Increased temperatures mean erratic rainfall - either too little or too much at a time - so we have ravaging floods that drown the crops and fires that burn the forest.

If you're a farmer, you already can feel that the climate is in trouble. There are more frequent droughts, heat waves, floods, storms, frosts, freezes, and locusts than before.

If the world becomes vegan as a group, we can remedy the disasters that affect us globally.

The planet will begin repairing itself in astonishing ways that scientists would be surprised. For example, the ice will stop melting and return to the way it was, green life will appear again, the oceans will be healed as the rainfall and temperature begin to regulate themselves again, produce restored balance.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-taints-a-good-cuppa-from-the-
tea-gardens-of-assam-20101228-199ci.html