This post is to display a number of maps that I’ve created using a variety of data sources on tea production in China between 1984 – 2009. We used quantitative data collected from China Agriculture Yearbooks published by the China Agricultural Publishing House (collected from Harvard University stacks) to determine average provincial yields from 1984 to 2009.
We assembled qualitative and anecdotal data to determine in which counties tea is produced in China. We would like to give credit to Dr. Wenyan Han at the Tea Research Institute at the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural Science and Meng Bian, a doctoral student at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, for helping us to determine anecdotally/qualitatively the counties in which tea is produced in China.
Overall, we found that yields across all provinces in China are increasing over time. However, the variability of yields by province has also increased over time (see chart below).
We calculated the average provincial yield (tons/ha) from 1984 to 2009. Fujian, Zheijiang, Guangxi, and Hunan province have the highest average 25-year yield over the time period (see map below).
In 2009, Fujian, Sichuan, Guangdong, and Hainan province had the highest yield (tons/ha) in 2009 (see map below).
Unfortunately, we have yet to assemble a county-level data set on yield. Although we look forward to working with Dr. Han and others to assemble this data.
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