STiR coffee and tea magazine

24 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 6, 2018 (December / January 2019) RWANDA Sorwathe's Green Tea Factory The Sorwathe Tea Estate will help slake Africa's growing thirst for green tea with the opening of a Rwf1 billion ($1.1 million) factory in November. The factory is in the Northern Province in the Kinihira sector, Rulindo district, a tea growing region with some of the oldest gardens in the country. Rohith Peiris, Sorwathe's director general said "Green tea is something that is being thought about all over the world because of its health benefits. We embarked on this because buyers have been asking for this tea for quite some time." The new plant is designed to produce organic green tea. The initial capacity is 300,000 kilos a year with most destined for export. Tea generated around $88 million last year with a value that is expected to increase to $92 million in 2018, making it the country's most valuable export. Tea is currently grown by 42,840 farmers on 66,500 acres (26,897 hectares) across 12 districts. Production capacity of the new plant could help the company earn about $1.2 million based on a price of around $4 per kilo. Sorwathe is the larg- est tea estate in Rwanda, processing 3.5 million kilos annually, about 15% of the country's total. The company also produces orthodox (whole leaf tea), white tea, and black teas for export to the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Japan, China, Pakistan, and France. SRI LANKA Tea Auction Weathers Crisis In November Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena fired Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a native Tamil and UNP legislator from the central tea plantations. A constitutional crisis ensued as Sirisena dissolved parliament and named former president Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace Wickremesinghe as prime minister. A week later parliament passed a no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa's government. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutional question. Despite tension that involved street protests, the twice-weekly tea auction at Colombo, which is the largest in the world, continued normal operations. The auction moves 6.5 million kilos of tea a week. The disruption did appear to delay a $25 million promotional campaign scheduled for October. The campaign tar- gets tea importers in Russia, Japan, Turkey, China, and the US. It is unclear when the effort will resume. Importers want the levy that finances promotions cut by half. Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake pledged to do so at the 19th Tea Export- ers' Association's annual general meeting. The global market share of Ceylon Tea has declined to 6% from 20% during the past 50 years, in part because of social unrest. Meanwhile world consumption worldwide has expanded more than 20%. UGANDA Smartphones Replace Cash Uganda: Workers paid by smartphone not cases of cash dropped from a plane Every 15 days, the cash to pay the wages for tea workers in McLeod Russel's Uganda farms falls from the sky. Literally so. A plane flies west from Kampala to the mountain locations, carrying two bags full of money. If the weather is bad, payday must be post- poned, a crisis among a labor force living on the edge of permanent penury. Sometimes, a bag doesn't quite land where it should. The tea garden manager breaks every speed limit to chase it down by car. Security is tight. McLeod Russel employs 95 staff to handle payroll delivery and 64 of these are heavily armed security guards. McLeod is the largest tea production company in the world. It has joined the growing number of firms that are switching to digital cash. The smart- phone replaces the plane, bank, and paper notes. The cultural and procedural changes are complex and involve many parties, but the benefits for workers and company are clear and proven. McLeod has so far institutionalized digital cash in two of its Uganda gardens. The direct savings are substantial: the cost of cash is estimated at 6.5% of salaries. McLeod expects to save productive time equivalent to 25 full-time workers once it completes the digitization. Fraud, theft, and leakage are commonplace in the paper environment. McLeod eliminated payments to "ghost workers" and now have records for tracking and accounting for payments. For the workers in Malawi, there are savings, too. For social reasons, the local population disdains the seasonal work so that over half the workers are from remote regions. The nearest bank or money exchange center is typically half a day's walk away. Sending money home is a time-con- suming chore. Cash is also marked by danger. Gang ambushes are not infre- quent along the roads workers must walk to reach a bank or store. An additional benefit that is routine now with smartphone accounts is that workers can build savings safely. One McLeod worker states that he is now able to put away 20% of his salary: "It will come in handy in the future." McLeod's partners include UNCDF MM4P (Mobile Money for the Poor), Mobile Network Operators Airtel and MTN, and merchants and Cash-in-Cash- Out services that issue old-fashioned cash to meet special needs. The new green tea factory at Sorwathe Tea Estates is the largest in Rwanda Sri Lanka Tea Board in Colombo

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