Farmers give tea agency one week to process bonus

Tea farmers in the south Rift Valley have given directors of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) in the region one week to process their half-year bonus payments or be sent home.

The farmers issued the ultimatum through the Kenya Union of Small Scale Tea Owners (Kussto) Rift Valley branch chairman Joel Chepkwony, even as they thanked President Uhuru Kenyatta and Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei for supporting their demands for payment.

Speaking at Kericho Sunshine Hotel on Friday, Mr Chepkwony threatened to lead farmers into uprooting their tea bushes or into a strike that will see them refuse to deliver green tea to KTDA-owned factories.

This comes barely a week after Mr Koskei accused the directors of refusing to approve payments to farmers despite a directive by President Kenyatta to that effect.

'ACT OF EXPLOITATION'

“We want to remind the directors that the factories are in operation only because they have the support of farmers. What will they do if we withhold our tea? We are warning them to release the funds or prepare to face the consequences,” he said.

At the same time, Mr Chepkwony demanded that farmers be awarded an interim bonus payment of at least Sh5 per kilo, saying that a lower amount would be "an act of exploitation."

Prior to a meeting with the President two weeks ago, KTDA had said it was unable to pay out this year’s half-year bonus due to poor international prices owing to a glut in tea production last year running into tens of millions of kilos of tea.

However, Joseph Chepkwony, a tea farmer from Bureti Sub-county placed the blame squarely on middlemen and brokers at the Mombasa Tea Auction who he accused of being behind the glut.

SINGLE FACILITY

“Some of these people hoarded made teas when the prices fell, hoping to sell them again when the prices improved. However, they were caught up by time and that is why a lot of tea was not sold last year at the auction as expected,” he said.

Eng Chepkwony, who delivers tea to Mogogosiek and Litein KTDA factories, also opposed a proposal by Agriculture CS Koskei to put up a single common user facility for value addition on tea in Mombasa.

According to him, having a single facility to process all the raw green tea from farmers who are not able to access alternative means to undertake value addition across the country could give rise to a large number of middlemen and "brokers."

GOVERNMENT'S TIGHT GRIP

“We are opposed to the plan because other people might come up and take advantage of farmers who cannot afford to travel to Mombasa to have their teas processed. We would prefer instead that one such facility is built in every tea-growing county,” he said.

Eng Chepkwony wants the national government to release its tight grip on the agricultural sector, adding that the sector should be left to county governments as is envisaged by the Constitution of Kenya 2010, which devolved most agricultural functions.

The two also urged the removal of the Ad Valorem tax on tea and the Tea Board Of Kenya (TBK) cess, saying the two taxes and many others were unnecessarily burdening farmers by eating into their profit margins.