Climate Change and Sustainability
All the tea farms we work with are certified organic and we have initiated extensive programs for the production of vegetative compost, CPP, mulching and growing green crops.
Projects have also been initiated to tackle issues of climate change as well as sustainable agriculture. Due to rampant deforestation in many of the tea growing regions climate change is getting aggravated. Trees and forests are an essential condition for maintaining ecological balance and soil fertility. The clearing of forest land on the steep hilly slopes for timber has led to many incidents of landslides and soil erosion.Our challenge now is to develop diverse, self sustaining and more ecologically inspired approachs to tea production.
A huge step we have taken to improve tea production and soil quality is agroforestry, which has tremendous potential to transform and increase the productivity of a tea garden. We combine productive trees and nitrogen fixing plants between our tea crops. This improves carbon sequestration, improves soil quality, promotes retention of nutrients, and also improves biodiversity. In addition we are also planting mixed forest trees along the steep slopes and edges of the garden. To check soil erosion and landslides we have undertaken planting of weeping love grass, Guatemala grass, Priotropis and Artemesia to hold and bind the soil together. This has further helped rejuvenation of the water table, increased oxygen levels in the atmosphere, improved soil bacteria and has increased the presence of wild birds and animals.
