Post by Trade facilitator on Mar 4, 2017 8:07:38 GMT 1
THE TEA SECTOR in East Africa continues to grow in terms of volumes and contributions to the local economies.
The sector employs millions especially in the rural mountainous regions of the East African highlands — from Central Kenya, Southern Tanzania, the rolling hills of Rwanda and the western regions of Uganda.
But farmers in the East African region are coming to terms with reduced production mainly due to the effects of climate change.
Research carried out in Kenya by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya shows that tea farmers may lose over 30 per cent in cash earnings due to the impact of climate changes in the coming years.
Climatic changes across the country
“Climatic changes have occurred across the country with the dry spells becoming longer and rainy erratic seasons. Sometimes the rainy season is delayed thus affecting tea production and yields,” said Jesse Wandimi, a 70-year farmer from Mumwe, in Nyeri County, who has grown the crop for the last three decades.
Increasingly, farmers have been planting shade trees such as Grevillea Robusta and Hakeaspp in their tea farms to create cool microclimates.
Diversification has become the norm
Diversification of farm enterprises has become the norm as tea farmers come to terms with declining tea production and earnings.
“As farmers, we now have to diversify the tea enterprise with other projects to cope with reduced yield. We now have to engage in dairy farming as well as grow vegetables commercially,” noted Mrs. Julia Wandimi on their farm by Mumwe River.
Farmers have been taught to identify new pests moving into the tea growing zones as a result of warm weather.
Farmers have also been advised to grow drought-tolerant crops such as sweet potatoes and cassava to supplement their food resources and save and invest their tea earnings.
At east 5,600 farmers recently underwent training on coping with the effects of climate change on their tea farming.
The project is funded by the Governments of Denmark and Norway and implemented by the Ethical Tea Partnership and the Kenya Tea Development Agency.
Mulching has also been identified as water saving technique farmers should adopt to conserve water.
Making of compost manure to help improve soil quality and water retention in the soil has also been recommended to farmers now facing the prospects of a bleak future.
“As rivers are drying up due to deforestation,there are farming methods that farmers have to learn to help conserve water in their farms as well as reduce wastage”, observed Joseph Gitau, a trainer with KIDA working under the project.
However, even with the climate change challenges, Kenya remains the region’s powerhouse in tea production, notwithstanding the high cost of power and farm inputs, that have strained earnings for smallholder producers in the country.
The tea industry in Kenya comprises plantation and large scale producers as well as smallholders.
The plantations — mainly located in Kericho and Nandi Counties - are run by multinational companies.
The over 500,000 smallholder producers sell their produce to 65 factories located in tea growing regions across the country.
These factories are managed by the Kenya Tea Development Agency Ltd (KTDA).Areas where tea is grown include KisiiHighlands, Cherangani Hills, NandiCounty, Mau Escarpment, KerichoHighlands, the Aberdare regions and theMt Kenya areas.
These entire regions have cool and rainy conditions a,d straddle the Equator rising to between 1,500 metres and 2,700 metres above sea levels.
Overall, KIDA-affiliated farmers earned US$636mn forthe 2014-15 crop, a 21 per cent increase from the US$526mn earned in the 2013-14 year.
Prices of tea at the Mombasa Auction averaged US$2.60 in the 2014/15 financial year up from US$ 2.43 in the previous year.
A total of 240mn kg of processed tea was made from 1 .039bn kg of green leafdelivered to factories in the 2014/15.