Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) has embarked on a campaign to standardise the quality of tea and reduce the discrepancies in payments in East and West of Rift Valley.
KTDA national chairman Enos Njeru said there has been variants in payments of tea farmers between those in the East and West.
Njeru noted that farmers in the West have been getting as low as Sh9 per kilogramme of tea while those in the East of Rift have been getting up to Sh57 per kilogramme.
He said the sensitisation will be geared towards improving tea management practices from planting, pruning, application of fertiliser, picking and the management of tea leaves at the buying centres and at the factories.
He said that these practices play the biggest role in determining the quality of the tea which eventually determines the prices of the tea per kilogramme.
“Efforts to improve tea quality is part of my vision of ensuring all farmers across board get higher earnings for their produce,” he said.
He said improved quality and improved earnings will help putting the all tea farmers at one level and do away with the notion of having tea farmers being from either the East or West of Rift.
Addressing the press, Njeru added that improving the quality of tea is his strongest vision for KTDA.
He stated reducing the variants will be felt by the end of his three-year term.
The chairman said KTDA wants to focus on coming up with new products that will create demand in the market so that they can fetch more money for the farmers.
He said that the new innovations will create more markets and preferences for the buyers.
On the issue of fertiliser, the chairman has said that the first consignment of subsidised fertiliser will arrive in the country this week at the Port of Mombasa.
He added that all logistics are in place to have fertiliser distributed to the farmers.
Njeru noted that the fertiliser has been taking long to arrive in the country since ships have been using longer routes to avoid the Israel and Hamas war.
