Thapa M.¹ , Lal U.²

1 Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Sikkim University, India
2 Assistant professor, Department of Geography, Sikkim University, India
Author    Correspondence author
Journal of Tea Science Research, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 9   
Received: 10 Aug., 2016    Accepted: 17 Aug., 2016    Published: 05 Aug., 2000

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Tea plantation industry has been one of the key economic providers for the people of Darjeeling Himalaya. Tea being a mono crop can lead to the number of environmental problems as the result of which tea industry is dwindling at a very slow pace in Darjeeling Himalaya. The large input of chemical fertilizer and pesticides are one of the inescapable factors leading to land degradation, soil erosion and water pollution in tea garden. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides contaminated water causes potential health hazard in the local ecosystem. In addition to that, the tea bushes of Darjeeling Himalaya are already hundred years old and no event or very few re-plantations has taken place which has resulted in declining productivity. Another problem faced here is the rising temperature and unpredictable rainfall patterns causing heavy downpour and frequent landslide. Moreover, one of the most important difficulties is that there is no further area for expansion of tea garden in the hilly tracts of Darjeeling as the result of which both quantity and quality of tea is dilapidated. Tea industry is such a sector where sufficient supply and quality tea cannot be expected throughout.  Lastly the stiff competition in the demand for the organically produced tea in European market has lead to the shifting of most of the tea garden to organic garden leading to decrease in productivity. This study mainly focused upon these environmental changes and found out these factors is mainly leading to the declining productivity in the tea gardens of Darjeeling Himalaya. Tea plantation industry has been one of the key economic providers for the people of Darjeeling Himalaya. Tea being a mono crop can lead to the number of environmental problems as the result of which tea industry is dwindling at a very slow pace in Darjeeling Himalaya. The large input of chemical fertilizer and pesticides are one of the inescapable factors leading to land degradation, soil erosion and water pollution in tea garden. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides contaminated water causes potential health hazard in the local ecosystem. In addition to that, the tea bushes of Darjeeling Himalaya are already hundred years old and no event or very few re-plantations has taken place which has resulted in declining productivity. Another problem faced here is the rising temperature and unpredictable rainfall patterns causing heavy downpour and frequent landslide. Moreover, one of the most important difficulties is that there is no further area for expansion of tea garden in the hilly tracts of Darjeeling as the result of which both quantity and quality of tea is dilapidated. Tea industry is such a sector where sufficient supply and quality tea cannot be expected throughout.  Lastly the stiff competition in the demand for the organically produced tea in European market has lead to the shifting of most of the tea garden to organic garden leading to decrease in productivity. This study mainly focused upon these environmental changes and found out these factors is mainly leading to the declining productivity in the tea gardens of Darjeeling Himalaya.

Environment; Tea Production; Darjeeling Himalaya

(The advance publishing of the abstract of this manuscript does not mean final published, the end result whether or not published will depend on the comments of peer reviewers and decision of our editorial board.)