Environmental Sustainability in Practice

Case Study: Drinking Tea in a Healthier Environment

Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) is a perennial, evergreen shrub, widely cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics (particularly in hilly or mountainous regions) for its tender leaves, which are dried and used for a mildly stimulating beverage. Tea is considered to be a health beverage because of its antioxidant properties and the resultant beneficial effects on human health. Such a beverage should be free from toxins such as pesticide residues. In reality, however, tea growing is increasingly associated with prolonged and extensive use of synthetic pesticides. This factor, along with the expansion of monocultures, has adversely affected beneficial predators and parasitoids of pests, leading to common pest outbreaks. Pest damage to tea leaves can reduce its marketability and cause significant crop losses, which leads to the further overuse of pesticides. Increasing pesticide use causes serious residue on leaves, and pest resistance and resurgence problems.

Tea is an important export commodity, and the use of pesticides on this cash crop has been guided principally by the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs), and by tolerance limits prescribed by the Commission of European Communities (CEC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the Food Control (FC), and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC). There is an increasing interest among these regulating bodies in alternative control strategies to replace or reduce the use of costly pesticides and to avoid the problems caused by their residues.

China rapidly realized the challenges coming from these standards in terms of access to world markets, and in the 2000’s, moved to find alternatives to reduce the use of pesticides. Many tea plantations (especially those geared towards export) have since engaged in the process of becoming organic or at least more sustainable. Some of the practices now used in tea plantations include enhancement of biodiversity with the use of trees and cover crops, yellow sticky cards to trap pests, and release of volatiles that attract pest enemies.
 

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