| The pattern,process,and mechanism of geographic factors are important aspects of geography research.Tea is one of the world's leading beverage ingredients.Over the past 70 years since the end of World War II,world's tea production,trade and consumption have undergone great changes.It has important theoretical and practical value to study the changes in production,trade and consumption patterns in the world.At the same time,China is a country with a long history of tea production,trade and consumption,it could provide scientific guidance for future tea production and trade planning decisions in China to study the dynamic process of Chinese tea production,trade pattern and analyze the drivers of change under the background of globalization.The spatio-temporal patterns of tea production were analyzed using the GIS and cartography tools.The system research was carried out through the comprehensive application of production concentration index,Gini coefficient,crop total contribution rate measure model,industrial center of gravity model,and partial least squares model.The main results and conclusions are as follows:(1)The study analyzed global tea production process and identified the changing characteristics of tea yield,tea plantation area,yield of tea plantation and four tea categories in the past 70 years.During the period,the annual growth rate of the global tea production(3.67%)was greater than the average annual growth of tea plantations(2.85%).The growth of global total output was mainly from the expansion of tea garden scale.The increase in yield of tea plantation contributed less than 30%to the increase in total tea production.CCT(Crush?Tear?Curl)tea accounted for more than 60%of the world's tea category,much higher than the traditional teas.(2)In this paper,the evolution process of the spatial pattern of tea production in the world is analyzed and its evolution characteristics are summarized.Over the past 70 years,tea cultivation has continued to spread across the world.The number of main tea-growing countries increased from 21 to 36 after the Second World War.Currently,China,India and Sri Lanka are the major producers in Asia;Kenya and Uruguay are major tea producers in Africa;Argentina is the largest tea producer in South America;Chinese tea production surpassed India's for the first time in 2006 and global tea production center returned to China after a century.The global tea production is highly concentrated,with Gini coefficient between 0.71 and 0.90.World's tea production has changed from "Double Giants(India and Sri Lanka)" to a "New Dual-core(China and India)".(3)In this paper,the evolution process of the spatial pattern of tea export in the world is analyzed and its evolution characteristics are summarized.The evolution characteristics of the spatial pattern were also analyzed.Over the past 70 years,the world's tea exports have fluctuated,whereas the annual fluctuation of the world tea exports is not large,about 20,000 T per year.The share of Asian tea-growing countries has dropped markedly,from 95%to 59%,while the share of Africa's tea exports has increased,nearly 40%of global tea exports.Export shares of India,Sri Lanka,and Japan continued to decline,while the shares of Kenya,China,Vietnam,Argentina have increased.In 2004,Kenya surpassed Sri Lanka,becoming the world's largest tea exporter and remaining the position since then.In 2009,China surpassed Sri Lanka,remaining the second largest tea producer.With the globalization,situation of the world's tea exports has evolved from double giants(India and Sri Lanka)70 years ago to a multipolar pattern recently:Kenya(26.72%),China(18.28%),Sri Lanka(15.62%),India(12.15%)and Argentina(4.76%).(4)In this paper,the evolution process of the spatial pattern of tea consumption in the world is analyzed and its evolution characteristics are summarized.The change characteristics were also analyzed.Over the past 70 years,the global imports of tea maintained at an annual growth rate of 2.5%,indicating a long-tenn stable global demand for tea.The global import of tea has gradually changed from centering around Europe(59%)and North America(18%)to tripod pattern of Asia(40%),Europe(28%),and Africa(20%).In the meantime,world tea consumers evolved from previously centering in the UK(51.92%),the USA(13.68%)and Australia(7.56%)to a multipolar pattern of Pakistan(10.12%),Russia(9.32%),the USA(7.63%),the UK(6.24%)and Egypt(5.15%).(5)The study quantitatively analyzed the contribution factors of China's tea production increase,and selected the world's major tea production and trading countries as a reference for comparison,analyzed the historical evolution of China's tea production in the process of globalization.The increase of tea plantation area was the main contributing factor(>60%)for the increase of the total yield of Chinese tea.In the past 70 years,the area of tea gardens in China has increased by 2.77 million hm2,and the tea production has increased by 2.308 million tons,with an average annual growth rate of 4.25%and 6.23%respectively;In the 70 years,China's tea yields showed a growth trend,but it was far below the world average(in 2016,the annual output only reached 54%of the world average).Green tea is the most important tea product in China,and its output is large and the proportion is high;China's tea exports have increased by 43 times,with an average annual growth rate of 5.76%.Since 2009,China's tea has basically ranked second in the world tea export market;since 2015,China's tea export volume has ranked first in the world;China's tea exports price is in the front rank of the world as a whole.In 2016,the unit price of China's tea exports surpassed that of Sri Lanka and ranked first in the world.At the beginning of the accession to the WTO,the impact on tea imports was weak.Since 2009,China's tea import average growth rate reached 14.16%.At present,China has become the largest tea plantation country in the world,the largest tea production country in the world,and the world's second tea trade volume and the world's largest tea trade value.(6)The spatio-temporal analysis was conducted to explore the spatial pattern of tea production in China from 1986 to 2015 under the background of globalization.In the past 30 years,the spatial pattern of tea production in China has changed greatly,with a clear regional differentiation.Tea production in the traditional areas including middle of Hunan,Anhui and the east coast of Zhejiang,and Guangdong gradually declined,and the tea industry gradually centered on the natural endowment advantage area,for example Guizhou,Yunnan,Sichuan and central Hubei.In the past 30 years,the gravity center of tea plantation area in China and the main center of the teas export have moved to the Southwest.The moving direction of gravity center of tea plantation area was roughly from southeast to northwest,while the moving direction of the tea export was roughly from northeast to southwest.In terms of moving speed,the west shift of the center of tea garden was faster than moving of the center of tea yield.(7)Using the main driving force and driving mechanism analysis method,this paper analyzes the main driving factors of the evolution of China's tea production pattern in recent 30 years,and reveals the driving force model of the spatial evolution of Chinese tea production.1)Five factors including land cost,human cost,industrial policy support,natural geographical environment and the application of new technology influenced the spatial evolution of Chinese tea production.Among the five factors,the first four factors had relatively high explanatory ability for the expanding size of tea plantation and increase in tea yield.The industrial policy support had a significant driving effect on the enlarging scale of tea gardens and promoting the tea yield in the Eastern China.Land cost had a significant driving effect on the tea producing in eastern,middle and southwestern tea areas.The labor cost had a significant driving effect on the scale of tea garden in eastern tea area.The natural geographical environment had a significant driving effect on the enlarging tea plantation scale and increasing yield of tea in the central region.2)After entering WTO,the export trade of tea has a positive guiding effect on China's tea production.There is a significant positive correlation between China's tea export volume and tea production and tea plantation area(R=0.75 and 0.69).With the stabilization and expansion of the international trade,a positive mechanism has taken place between China's tea production and exports.3)During the inspection period,the center of gravity of China's tea production moved from east to west under the driving force.But the size and direction of the driving force in different periods varied,that is,the driving force exerted great fluctuations on the gravity of tea production.Research shows that under the background of the globalized landscape,due to the combined influence of domestic and foreign factors,the layout of China's tea production has shifted significantly to the west in the past 30 years.The relatively low land cost and labor costs in the western tea region have laid a good foundation for the westward shift of tea production in China.The national industrial support policy has also provided strong guarantees for the standardization,scale,and basement development of tea gardens in the western region.The positive role of the appropriate geographical conditions in the western tea region is also objectively attracting the gradual shift of tea production from the east to the southwest.The corresponding policy to further improve the regional production of "Chinese tea" to be a "global seller" through international trade includes adjusting industrial structure,promoting integration of three sectors,securing quality,and taking advantage of "Belt and Road Initiative".The study expands the research scope of tea geography,introduces the spatial geography technology into the evolution characteristics of tea production pattern,realizes the visualization of global and Chinese tea production pattern changes,and makes up for the insufficiency of traditional statistical data analysis. |
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