With extreme weather patterns seeming to be the topic of the news this month, our farms too have suffered.
On Changoi farm, otherwise known as our sunshine farm due to it’s typically bright weather and home to the largest solar panel park in east Africa, we have experienced extreme hail storms. These unexpectedly sudden storms, with hail stones as big as grapes in some places, ripped through the farm causing severe damage to the young tea bushes, indigenous trees and firewood stores.
Kenya’s equatorial climate has greatly altered within not just our time of tea farming of over five generations, but within our lifetime. As the community rebuilds after the freak storms and the temperature begins to rise we have been reflecting on the impact of climate change within not just our own communities, but as the news has shown during the last few weeks worldwide. It seems that the only answer as farmers is to continue to invest our resources into sustainable farming and protecting the local ecosystems, that eventually if diminished play out on a global scale.
