Looking into the future of organic tea production and sustainable farming: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

The organic movement have considered itself the growing drive for today’s consumers purchasing behaviour and growing attention from mainstream media. However, it has not fully received the attention to increase the organic tea industry to benefit humanity and natural ecosystems. The effect is that the future is uncertain as current challenges continue to pose threats to the industry. A systematic review was done to examine the overview of organic tea production challenges and prospects within the scope of sustainable farming. The findings showed that the unprecedented challenges are currently facing the global organic tea industry, which includes high competition for agricultural land, convention of organic lands for other purposes and urbanization activities in tea-growing countries. Biotic and abiotic stresses are major limits to agricultural production. Lack of knowledge on organic practices and high input costs affect the adoption of organic farming. However, the growth and new marketing trends in Asia-Pacific is an excellent sustainable indicator. Besides, stakeholders commitment is needed to implement and comply with applicable laws and supports to ensure industry development and sustainability. The current study is the first to have put together literatures on the global challenges and prospects of the organic tea industry within sustainable agriculture.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable agriculture
• organic tea
• stakeholders
• tea production challenges
• organic farming
• climate change
• systematic review

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank ‘One belt, one road’ International Tea Industry Innovation Institute for the facilities and research support.

Availability of data

Data for the study is available upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported financially by the Expert Workstation of Yunnan Province (202105AF150045), the National International Joint Project (G20200010081), the China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA (CARS-19), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32172628) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (NJAUPAPD).