INDIA
An unusually long and intense cold snap in South India caused extensive damage to high-altitude gardens in the Nilgiri mountains.
Trouble began just after the New Year with temperatures falling to below zero centigrade. Crop losses at the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations (KDHP)near Munnar exceeded 700,000 kilos.
The United Planters Association of South India (UPASI) told the Economic Times it will take gardens “weeks if not months to recover from the prolonged aftereffects of the cold spell.”
Once scorched, tea bushes take four to five months to return to full bearing. In the meantime, workers are idle as bought leaf factories will not process frost-burned leaves.
In some places, growers will use the occasion to make limited quantities of “frost tea.” “The quality of our tea has risen significantly, thanks to winter influence. The Japanese are keenly interested in procuring these top quality winter teas at premium prices,” said D. Hegde, director of The United Nilgiri Tea Estates. At most smallholder gardens, which depend on plucking for income, the loss is devastating.
The Times of India reported that many thousands of workers “have been struggling without adequate income for the past two weeks. With frost continuing to extensively damage tea leaves across the district, they have no leaves to pick.”