World tea output falls

World tea output falls

ROME (AFP): Tea production worldwide is expected to drop this year as a result of insufficient rains, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a report released here yesterday.

The world harvest is expected to fall short of the record 2.69 million tons set last year, the FAO noted in its report for the 12th session of the intergovernmental group on tea, meeting from Wednesday to Friday in Bali, Indonesia.

Dry weather has affected production in Sri Lanka and in most of the African tea-producing countries, especially Kenya where output in the first quarter of 1997 shrank 37 percent compared with the same period last year.

In 1996 the total volume of tea exports rose by about 2.6 percent, totaling 1,105,000 tons, led by Kenya with 244,200 tons.