Climate change threatens Uganda's vital tea production

Monsters & Critics via Deutsche Presse Agentur brings up one of the long-term casualties of the drought currently devastating East Africa: With climate change threatening to cause a drop in tea production in Uganda, local traders warned on Wednesday that the government was unprepared for the likely economic impact on over half a million people.

George William Ssekitoleko, chairman of the Uganda Tea Association, warned that the country has no 'active research' into growing drought-resistant tea or other cloned varieties.

Parts of Uganda are currently suffering from the severe drought affecting the Horn of Africa - the worst the region has seen in decades. East Africa is set to become less suited for tea growing in the coming years, according to a recent report by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture....

A tea plantation in the Bushenyi District of Uganda, shot by sarahemcc, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license