Apologies for the long pause in posting. I’ve been working on some longer pieces for several publications. I’ll post links to them here when they’re published. Now let’s get back to the journey with a last look at the tea industry — or, rather, one very un-industrial plantation located in the plains below the Himalayas.
I plan to pick up the pace of posting in the coming weeks to catch you with my travels.
Nearly every tea plantation in India has adopted at least some organic farming methods to build resilience of their crops, in part against the growing ravages of climate change. At Nuxalbari Tea Estate in the Dooars region of West Bengal, Sonia Jabbar views organic farming methods as just one part of a wider effort to reintroduce elements of nature, wilderness, to the estate. That means everything from reviving microbial life in the soil to welcoming some considerably larger visitors (see above tweet). Sonia, as you’ll hear, is something of a force of nature herself, the only woman who both owns and runs — hands-on, day-to-day — a tea estate in India.
Have a listen to the audio report (button above), edited and produced by the masterful Diana Chester, an audio producer, multimedia artist and digital media scholar who also teaches at the University of Sydney.
Share this post