GACHOKI: Brief history of mechanisation of tea picking in Kenya

In October last year, the media in Kenya were awash with news of tea harvesting machines being torched in Kericho by some irate protestors who claimed that the machines were taking away their jobs.

But what exactly is mechanisation in tea picking and why has it been such a hot potato in Kenya?

Mechanised tea plucking is on record to have started in 1958 in China. But until the 1970s, many countries were still carrying out studies on the subject matter resulting in the designs and applications of tea plucking machines of manual type, electrical type and manoeuvring types.

Since commercial tea farming started thousands of years ago, plucking tea leaves was largely by hand and with a great deal of skill and dexterity. This method ensures that one only selects the youngest shoots that are ripe for plucking when the tea bush “flushes” or pushes out new leaf shoots. Pluckers will take the first two leaves and one new bud. At the end the processed tea from such leaves retains the freshness, but also ensures a milder taste.

With rising of economic pressures, the tea industry found itself confronted with higher costs of labour, and had to seek more efficient production methods. That’s how the earlier model of plucking shears was invented and later a mechanical process of tea plucking. Shearers are the commonest and are normally held by two men walking on the sides of the tea rows or with a power plucker set on two rails placed along the rows.

The Tea Taskforce 2021 report found out that labour and fertiliser constitute the highest cost components, accounting for 80 per cent and 13 per cent of total production costs. These numbers justify the need of adopting ways to lower labour costs through use of alternative technologies. This is where mechanised machine plucking comes in. Labour as the biggest cost component eats into the profitability of the tea farming enterprise and must be soberly addressed.

The tea plucking machines debate that has raging for some time now can only best be conducted away from political emotions and accusations. A lot of these arguments have been around loss of jobs and lowering of quality. These are genuine concerns but require to be looked at through empirical studies and business sense.

We have heard of all manners of arguments including that a one hand-held tea-harvesting machine operated by two people does work that can be done by 25 workers. And one self-propelled harvester takes the place of 100 tea pickers. As such the consequent result of using these machines therefore translates to losses of more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs.

But the reality is that tea farming is becoming more unprofitable, first, because of the ever-rising cost of production. Of course, higher prices would make the situation better, but lower costs with higher prices will make the enterprise more profitable.

In a study titled “Assessment of Mechanical Harvesting of Tea and its Viability for Use in Kenya” by J. Maina and W. Kaluli of Biomechanical and Environment department, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Technology, the two researchers delved deep into the chemical behaviour of tea based on hand and machine plucking, touching on tea quality and further economic implications from a cost of production perspective. The study concluded that “mechanised tea harvesting is clearly more profitable than manual harvesting”.

It is a fact that while China and Japan are the global leaders in tea harvesting mechanisation, this was largely driven by the unavailability of human labour and need for cutting production costs. This seems to be the same reality in Kenya today.

Most of central Kenya where tea is grown, farmers are struggling with plucking labour with most of the available pluckers charging an arm and a leg, leaving the farmer in huge losses. Some farms in both China and Japan use mechanised tea plucked 100 per cent. Kenya is only learning from those ahead in addressing the same challenge.

It is therefore no brainer that machine plucking in tea is the future. But this needs to be gradual so all concerned adjust to the new realities.