Business News
State pumps Sh300m into tea research
A tea farmer picks her crop ready to be taken to factories for processing. Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has suspended buying of green tea leaves during late hours to curb a mass exodus of its farmers to other multi-national tea companies operating in parts of Rift Valley province . Photo/FILE
In Summary
- Board to use part of the funds to market produce to improve farmers’ earnings
The government has injected Sh300 million into the Kenya Tea Board (KTB) to be used for tea research and marketing, a minister has said.
Agriculture minister William Ruto said on Monday that the board will carry out the twin duties both locally and internationally in a bid to improve sales and prices of the farm produce.
Speaking in Konoin, Rift Valley Province, the minister said that the money injected into KTB was part of the government’s efforts to improve payments to small scale tea farmers which have for many years remained low.
Mr Ruto expressed concern over the poor management of the Kenya Tea Development Agency managed factories adding that the agency needed to embrace change if it was to continue running the factories on behalf of farmers.
The minister said he would welcome any meaningful amendments to the tea sector that would help weed out the many unnecessary management levels between the tea grower and seller in the world market.
Cripple operations
This, he noted, was eating into the profit margins of the tea farmer.
The minister’s comments come after a row broke out between tea savings and credit cooperative societies (Saccos) and KTDA over the latter’s registration of its own micro-finance firm.
Saccos are protesting that Greenland Fedha Ltd will duplicate their services, cripple their operations and eventually toss them out of business.
Following the registration, there are fears that farmers will troop away to the new outfit, which does not require any fund deposits for one to access loans. This is unlike Saccos where credit is given against a member’s savings.
But despite this, Kenyan tea prices have over the past few weeks hit their highest levels in more than a decade at the auction thanks to good quality and tight world supply, brokers said.
The average price for Best BP1s hit $4.03 per kilogramme, up from a previous high of $3.97 reached in August.
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