STiR coffee and tea magazine

48 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 6, 2017 (December / January) Kenya Small Growers Opt for Private Buyers A Martha Nyanduko, right, picks tea at her farm in Kisii county. She prefers selling her tea to KTDA's Ogembo processing factory. nnah Bisieri, a tea farmer in Kenya's western Kisii county, had contracted with the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for more than 30 years until 2010 when she opted for alternatives ways to market her tea. The publicly funded KTDA was founded in 1964 after Kenya gained indepen- dence to address the shortage of processing facilities evident since the 1950s when tea production became widespread. KTDA (the agency) was reorganized in 2000 as a private venture that provides comprehensive services to more than 565,000 small tea growers. KTDA is owned by 54 tea companies that operate 66 factories. Services include agri-extension and training, transportation, warehousing, processing, financing, and marketing. In this high-density region Bisieri's two-acre farm (.85 hectares) is double the size of her neighbors. Subdivisions have turned tea and other farming activities into uneco- nomical ventures, she says. "For many years I delivered my green leaf to the KTDA factory, where I was a shareholder, but I later decided to sell the produce to private buyers because of the many challenges we faced as tea small holders," said Bisieri. These challenges include delays in the collection of green leaf from buying centers, lower payments compared to what private factories offer, and allegations of falsification of weighed kilograms by KTDA tea buying clerks. "In some instances, we had to wait three to four agonizing days for a KTDA ve- hicle to collect our produce, and by the time it comes the tea's weight and quality is already compromised," she said. Nearly 35% of tea production by small holder farmers is sold to middlemen who then sell it to private factories and multinationals in Kericho and Bomet counties. Small holders are happy to find a buyer. They are not engaged in marketing their green leaf, a responsibility that is carried out by the private processing factories in part- nership with different tea brokers or at the Mombasa auction. For tea farmers affiliated to KTDA, the agency has several subsidiaries including Kenya Tea Packers (KETEPA), which blends, packs and distributes the processed tea locally and in the world market. KTDA also owns Chai Trading Company which deals with warehousing, blending, and trading tea destined for export. Clifford Ogonyo of RAO farm in Nyamira buys smallholder's tea leaves By Shem Oirere

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