The Permanent Secretary (PS) State Department of Agriculture Dr. Kiprono Ronoh has flagged off the first batch of 47,300 metric tons (equivalent to over 1 million bags) of NPK fertilizer to be distributed to over 650,000 tea farmers ahead of the October-November-December short rains.
The fertilizer is the first batch of 97,000 tons procured by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) to support farmers. The next consignment is expected to dock in the next two weeks.
Dr Ronoh said at the Port of Mombasa that the government is fulfilling its commitment to tea farmers through the fertilizer subsidy programme.
“As promised by this government, the cost of one bag of fertilizer remains Sh2, 500. Tea farmers like other farmers will benefit from the subsidized programme which the government has put in place,” stated the Agriculture PS.
He underscored the importance of the tea sector to the economy as it contributes close to four per cent of the country’s GDP.
“In terms of money, it moved from Sh138 billion to an earning of close to Sh200 billion. It is attributed to good rains, government fertilizer subsidy programmes, and an increase in tea bushes,” explained Dr Ronoh.
He encouraged tea farmers to step up their efforts as the government looked for a market for their tea to improve the livelihood of farmers and the social-economic indicators of the country.
On the unsold stocks of tea, he appreciated KTDA for their efforts in reducing the kilogrammes of unsold tea and promised that going forward, there would be no unsold tea above 40m kgs.
To address tea factories’ operational efficiency, the government has commissioned an audit of all the factories to check on their challenges to enable it together with KTDA to support the factories facing inefficiencies.
“We also realized that the issues of quality also contributed to low tea earnings for some farmers. We are rolling out reforms in the tea sector and among them is to see how best we can improve tea quality,” stated the PS.
The PS further assured farmers that the government is keen to expand markets across the globe and that already, there were arrangements with China to buy Kenya tea.
He said the government is building a common user facility to assist small-scale tea farmers in value addition and packaging.
“A common user facility that was launched by the Head of State recently is ongoing in Ketepa, Kericho. We are also going to look for a common user facility in Mombasa and Nairobi to take care of the Eastern region,” said the PS.
Tea directors were urged to ensure there is proper governance in their factories to reduce wastage and theft of tea due to wrong calibration.
“We realized that some machines have got challenges and sometimes they give wrong readings either by design or by error. Tea Board of Kenya is going to inspect all the tea factories weighing machines to make sure they are weighing the right weight so that there is no theft of tea farmers at tea buying centres,” said the PS.
KTDA Chairman Enos Njeru thanked the government for the fertilizer subsidy programme.
“There is that commitment by the government to pay the balance which will be close to almost Sh1000. We appreciate this,” said Njeru, challenging tea farmers to concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
This year, the KTDA Chairman noted farmers produced 1.4 million bags of green tea leaves compared to last year when 1.1 million bags were produced.
On his part, KPA MD Capt. William Ruto said that the Mombasa port efficiency has led to the timely offloading of fertilizer from the delivery vessel.
He advised KTDA that future consignment needed to be ordered on time because of the long routes ships have to take due to upheaval on the Red Sea.
By Sadik Hassan
