Agriculture and Environment: Tea

Better Management Practices: Reduce Water Consumption

Water consumption may be an issue in some areas, primarily as a result of irrigation and especially through extraction of ground water.

Both the volume of water used and the ratio of renewable to nonrenewable water used need to be considered.

Harvesting water
Water can be harvested from building roofs or even from retention ponds built in runoff areas of the property away from streams. It is an important principle to insure that water use is not at the expense of downstream users.

Sustainable consumption
In some instances, simply making workers aware of the importance of an issue by measuring it is the first and most important step in reducing overall consumption.

There are a number of ways to reduce use. Drip irrigation uses less water than sprinklers. Water use in the factory can be reduced by condensing and reusing the steam from the drying tea leaves, and by dry-cleaning or brushing the factory lines where product is moved, processed and packaged rather than washing them with water.

Water pollution
Water pollution is also an issue. When caused by inappropriate timing of fertiliser applications or field renovations, it can be reduced by the soil conservation methods described above and especially by increasing organic matter in soil to retain both water and nutrients.

Or it can result from high biological oxygen demand, as in the effluent resulting from flushing organic matter during processing. One way to avoid this would be to establish water catchment areas to allow organic matter to decompose and settle out rather than simply allowing it to be flushed down stream.