A three year absence of heavy rains during the rainy season has caused one of the biggest droughts in the recent history of East Africa. Humans and wildlife alike have been suffering from lack of food and clean drinking water. In Kenya alone at least four million people are relying solely on donations from aid organizations in order to survive. This has led to violence around delivery points, which authorities feel will get even worse as the drought continues.
One oft-overlooked aspect of the current drought is the effect it is having on one of Kenya’s key industries, which is the export of tea. Kenya is currently the largest exporter of black tea in the world, which makes the tea industry the single most important contributor to the Kenyan economy. The Tea Board of Kenya recently released numbers that show a steep drop off in tea production over the first eight months of 2009, a trend attributed to the ever worsening drought.
Tea production in Kenya has fallen by nearly twelve percent according to the Tea Board, and this trend is expected to continue until the rains start to fall. Prices for tea in Kenya are at an all time high, as drought conditions have contributed to a worldwide shortage of black tea.
The shortage has not necessarily been bad for profits in the tea industry as the rising cost of tea has actually led to a twenty two percent raise in profits since this time last year. It is possible that prices in Kenya will rise an additional fifteen per cent over the next year.
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