Farmers pick fresh tea leaves at a tea plantation in Kericho. (Xinhua/Xu Suhui)
The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has assured farmers that the final payments for the crop at the end of the year might not be affected by the drop in tea prices at the auction.
Tea farmers in the North Rift have been receiving a bumper harvest since January as a result of favourable weather that spared their crop from drought and frost. The glut has seen tea prices drop by about Sh42 a kilogramme.
The agency told the Business Daily that it was too early to establish whether the drop in prices would affect the final payments to farmers.
“Though it is too early to make judgment, we are monitoring to see if the drop experienced in the past couple of weeks would be sufficient to dent the gains made by good tea prices from mid last year,” said KTDA corporate communications officer Charles Kimathi.
He said that the prices were likely to stabilise from next month with the onset of cold season that would see the supply of green leaves drop.
“In cold season, tea bushes register a decline in production compared to output in a normal season,” said Mr Kimathi. “With this, we expect the price to rise based on the market dynamics of supply and demand.
Farmers are paid Sh14 per kilogramme for monthly deliveries to the factories and Sh30 a kilogramme for the total supply in the year.
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