Small-scale farmers delivered 1.1bn kg of green leaf last year compared to 907m kg in 2012. FILE
Kenyan tea continues to register poor price at the Mombasa Tea Auction following a supply glut that has persisted since last year.
During the auction held on Tuesday, a kilogramme of tea traded at $2.07 (Sh178) compared to $2.30 (Sh198) last week.
“From the trend that we have had over the past years, the weather is usually favourable in the months of March and April, leading to increased volumes of tea at the market, which suppresses the price,” said East Africa Tea Traders Association managing director Edward Mudibo.
He said there was hope that prices would pick up from May when supply of green leaf drops. The average price of tea for a total of 11 sales last year was at $2.95 (Sh253) per kilogramme compared to $2.30 (Sh197) for the corresponding period this year.
Kenya is the leading world exporter of black tea and the cash crop is a major foreign exchange earner.
The tea prices have been falling since last year, before gaining slightly in January to trade at an average of $2.70 per kilogramme.
The Tea Board of Kenya indicated last month that the unsold stocks from the previous auctions had a negative impact on the price of tea.
The smallholder tea farmers delivered about 1.1 billion kilogrammes of green leaf to the 66 factories managed by Kenya Tea Development Agency last year against 907 million kilogrammes over the same period in 2012.
The agency announced that farmers would miss on the mini bonus this year, blaming poor prices in the world market.
A total of 4.8 billion kilogrammes of tea was processed globally last year, with 4.6 billion kilogrammes consumed. The balance was carried forward to the current financial year.
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