Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri has urged the Kenya Tea Development Agency to be paying farmers their annual bonuses in three phases.
He said there have been complaints by farmers who are forced to take loans to meet their needs as they are unable to wait for the bonuses at the end of the year.
Kiunjuri said KTDA sells tea worth billions of shillings and keeps the money in an escrow account, where it accrues interests.
Farmers, he said, later borrow the same money to cater for their needs at an interest.
He said KTDA should pay farmers in three phases to ease their borrowing and improve their lives.
“Farmers’ demands are not outrageous at all. I will be talking to KTDA to see why they cannot pay farmers three times a year. Why keep farmers payments in banks for one year as they struggle to take loans?” Kiunjuri asked on Friday.
The CS asked the agency to increase the monthly pay from Sh15 per kilo of tea delivered to Sh30.
Kiunjuri spoke in Njii Ithatu village in Kangema subcounty, Murang’a, where he commissioned the stalled Nyanjigi irrigation water project.
He said his ministry will give more than 50,000 tea seedlings to help upgrade the existing varieties.
The CS said his ministry is rolling out a liming programme to alkalise the soil that has become too acidic, hurting production. “In Nyeri, we have already given out 100,000 lime bags in partnership with the county, which is giving them to farmers for free,” he said.
Two and a half bags of lime, Kiunjuri said, are enough to treat one acre and boost harvests.
Murang’a woman representative Sabina Chege had said legislators from tea- growing areas will from next year pushing for more monthly pay for farmers.
She said an MPs’ caucus will push to restructure the tea sector. Chege said factories sell a kilo of processed tea at Sh400, yet they pay farmers Sh40 per kilo in annual bonuses and Sh15 per kilo per month. She said money made by tea factories at auction is enough to pay farmers Sh30 per kilo per month and still pay annual bonuses.