Shunning Kenya Tea Development Agency won’t help small tea farmers

Kenya needs a unity of purpose to reach the development goals set out in Vision 2030. The country cannot afford to have strikes or work boycotts in the agricultural sector, the key driver of its economy. Small-scale farmers are just as critical to the tea industry as the multi-nationals.

The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) can explain why in the last financial year, total earnings actually increased, but the factory rates per kilo of green leaf fell marginally.

We expect farmers to have an open mind and be convinced that KTDA, which is, after all, their agency, is doing a good job if the facts and figures bear this out.

Experience

Farmers should take any case made to pull out of KTDA and set up their own marketing or management company with a healthy dose of salt.

A look at the goings on at the factory level, where the job to be done is clear cut, should make farmers wary of any snake oil salesmen who try to persuade them they can do a better job, when none of them has experience in international markets.

Many a coffee farmer who listened to similar stories has learnt to his cost that penetrating international markets is no walk in the park.

It is expensive, time consuming and frustrating. It is not for nothing that KTDA has earned global accolades and has been invited to countries like Rwanda to rehabilitate and manage two of their tea factories.

This does not mean that KTDA has no role to play in the education of farmers on the dynamics of the tea industry that impact their earnings.

The Ministry of Agriculture too, should ensure harmony prevails in the small-scale tea sub-sector.