- The tea bushes to be replaced were planted soon after independence almost 60 years ago.
- The tea varieties to be replanted are resilient to climate change, which has been a big issue to farmers.
The Kenya Tea Development Agency is seeking to replace 11,000 hectares of low quality tea bushes with superior varieties that will produce more tea.
The tea bushes to be replaced were planted soon after independence almost 60 years ago.
KTDA field services and agriculture head Kanja Thuku said the exercise will be undertaken in all tea growing areas under the agency.
Thuku, however, said there are no set timelines for the replacement as it will be voluntary and will only target willing farmers.
“However, we are optimistic that they will understand that to improve productivity, they will have to replace the more than 50-year-old tea bushes with new varieties,” he said.
The replanting will see the waning tea bushes producing one kilogramme in a year replaced with superior varieties capable of producing two to three kilogrammes.
The tea varieties to be replanted are also resilient to climate change, which has been a big issue to farmers.
He spoke at Chinga tea factory in Othaya, Nyeri, on Tuesday, during the graduation of 315 farmers from Chinga catchment area who benefitted from a holistic economic empowerment training programme.
The programme included teaching them on income generating activities that can compliment tea income.
Thuku said the training is meant to have the farmers diversify their income so they can supplement tea earnings.
The trained farmers will be expected to train others on how to implement the activities in their farms and how to improve productivity and increase their returns.
Sudi Matara, the head of KTDA Foundation, a subsidiary involved in corporate social investments, said the training on diversification will see farmers diversify their sources of income to cushion them when tea prices are low.
Farmers are engaging in various enterprises like pig rearing and horticulture farming which includes growing of avocado fruit trees, among others.
“We have so many other enterprises and it depends on what the farmer wants," Matara said.
"We do not dictate on the kind of enterprises they want to get into. Our work is to facilitate and catalyse them to do what they think will give them more money.”
The foundation co-creates projects of choice with farmers and other partners who are buyers and come up with a project budget, work plan and market research.
He said training of farmers in all KTDA factories will cost about Sh40 million.
Ethical Tea Partnership executive director Jenny Costelloe lauded the empowerment programme, saying the income generating activities started will reduce over reliance on tea by farmers.
Ethical Tea Partnership is a company that works with tea producers and tea companies to improve the sustainability of the tea industry.
Costelloe said they visited to ascertain whether the social and environmental risks in tea are being addressed.
“Kenya is one of the most important origins for tea for our buyers and members, and so it is really important we get our work here right," she said.
"What I have seen today is a programme that is delivering dignity to the farmers,” she said.
Nyeri Agriculture executive James Muturi said diversifying to other sources of income will ensure farmers have alternative sources of income as they wait for the replanted tea to mature.
He said the farmers will be well equipped with better management of their farms and the additional enterprises they will undertake.
Muturi said moribund tea bushes which produce a kilo per year are not sustainable, thanking partners for complementing the three-year effort by counties to replace the bushes.
The more advanced varieties that the county has been giving out include the TRFK 300, a variety developed by the tea research institute.
“We are happy that now we have partners who can come and support us to really scale up this intervention because government is not able to do this by itself,” he said.
Nyeri produces around 73 million kilos of tea per year, with Muturi expressing optimism that successful replacements of all the bushes can double the current production.
Nathaniel Kimuru, a farmer, who has already diversified into pig farming, said he is optimistic he will make extra cash from the venture and uplift his family’s living standards.
Another farmer, Esther Kamau, said the training has been an eye-opener to farmers, adding that they have started receiving benefits of the new tea varieties and diversification.
(edited by Amol Awuor)