Nerada Tea, the largest producer of Australian-grown tea, is just one of several farms experiencing weather extremes as preparations for Australia’s tea harvest begin.
It is winter in the Southern Hemisphere and the Bureau of Meteorology reports an unusually fierce and damaging frost. A July storm brought winds of 125 kilometers per hour, the result of Antarctic air blasting north from the South Ocean. The spring harvest runs Sept. 1 through November with a first flush prized as much as the March harvest in northern tea lands.
Neradaplantation director Tony Poyner, told TheNew Daily severe frosts, followed by a prolonged dry period overthe past 12 months, have decimated the tea plantation located in Far NorthQueensland, wiping out nearly 50% of the black tea yield.
Theharsh weather conditions and resulting crop devastation has cost the360-hectare farm – located on the Atherton Tablelands near Cairns – close to AUD$1million in production losses, according to Poyner.
TheGuardian reports that across much of Australia “dramaticclimate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating.”
InJuly a Rabobank reported global weather continues to be “highly unusual”, with drought forcing Australia to import wheat for thefirst time in more than a decade.
“Extreme climate events such a heatwaves, floods and droughtdamaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-yearperiod,” according to researchers at CSIRO, Australia’s national scienceagency. A studyof the nation’s 8,000 kilometer coast by CSIRO found climate events wereexacerbating the effects of human-induced climate change.
“Allof the people around the country working on these systems for years have done agreat job of documenting the impacts and repercussions,” Russ Babcock, thestudy’s lead author, said.
“Ifyou stand back and have a look at how many [climate events] have happenedbetween that period of 2011 to 2017, it really backs up that it’s not just the Great BarrierReef that we have to think about. It’s all around the country.”
Coastaltea farms
Australia’stea producing areas are in South West Victoria, Northern New South Wales,Tasmania, and Western Australia. Nerada faces the Great Barrier Reef along apicturesque coastal strip. Several of Australia’s tea farms are in Queensland.These include Nucifora which borders Nerada and Arakai Estate in Bellthorpe,Queensland.
Almostall the tea consumed in Australia is imported. India is the largest supplier(230 metric tons), followed by Sri Lanka (171 metric tons) and Indonesia (137 metrictons). By comparison only a few minor specialty teas were imported from Japan.The sources of imports reflect the established historical preference ofAustralians for breakfast teas in the English style, writes Sharyn Johnston,founder of Australian Tea Masters.
Australiaranks 55 globally for per capita consumption. Imports amount to 97% ofconsumption, according to Tea Journey’sAustralia Harvest Review. The total consumer market for 2018 was almostexactly $500 million. Growth is estimated to be just under 2% per annum.
“It’sbeen a tough year in Australian agriculture – a sunburnt country of floodingrains that suddenly halted an extended drought in Queensland and created a newset of disasters in the process as the barren earth disappeared under an inlandsea,” wrote Nerada.
“Thecyclone season is an additional challenge for farmers in our home state.Ex-Tropical Cyclone Owen broke records when it dumped more than 700 millimetersof rain in 24 hours in some parts of Far North Queensland just a week beforeChristmas last year,” according to the Nerada blog.
“Mostbusinesses would look to cut costs as a result. But we continue to stand by ouremployees, many who have been with us for decades, so that we remain a viablepart of the local economy,” said Tony Poyner.
“Whileproduction has been significantly reduced, we’ve kept everyone on the payroll.The team is still here, and the machinery has never looked so sharp,” he said.
Source:Nerada Tea,Frontiersin Marine Science, TheGuardian, TheNew Daily, CSIRO, Tea Journey,AustralianTea Masters