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New levy to fund tea marketing, innovation
Agriculture and Livestock Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe speaking during the release of the 2024 Tea Industry Performance Results at the East African Tea Trade Association (Eatta) in Mombasa on March 13, 2025.
The government plans to introduce a new levy to finance marketing and research in the multi-billion shilling tea industry.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said the government will create a Common Tea Marketing Development Fund to support the development of tea markets in the country and abroad.
“We have new regulations and next week I might be gazetting them, which will assist in developing the sector, among them is the introduction of a Common Tea Marketing Development Fund to assist in marketing and developing the sector,” he said on Thursday during the release of the 2024 Kenya Tea Industry Performance Report in Mombasa.
“We have to invest in value-addition and what is happening to macadamia farmers, it won’t take long before the ban on the export of raw tea is effected. I am urging tea stakeholders to adopt technology and work as a team towards achieving our vision to export value-added teas.”
He also said he has proposed the creation of an Agriculture Police Unit to safeguard farmers and the industry.
This comes as earnings from Kenya’s tea exports grew by nine per cent, to Sh215.21 billion in 2024, up from Sh196.97 billion the previous year while local sales stood at Sh18 billion.
Tea production increased from 570 million kilogrammes, the previous year to 598 million kilogrammes last year.
From the total market value, political instability in different countries affected the growth in the sector with only one per cent (Sh1.12 billion) realised as an increase from the Sh180.57 billion recorded in 2023.
“Due to market access challenges occasioned by internal conflict in the country, there was a dip in tea exports to Sudan of 12 percent. Tea exports to Pakistan also recorded a dip of two percent owing to the effects of the changes in the sales tax policy in the market, which was effected during the last quarter of the year,” said the report.
The report also indicated that during the period under review, there were also market access challenges occasioned by disruptions along the Red Sea shipping route due to the attacks on vessels by the Yemen terrorist group.
The disruption has prompted several shipping lines to suspend their operations through the route and revert to using the Southern tip of Africa as an alternative transhipment route whose shipment duration is much longer and costs more from the Mombasa port.
Kenya’s tea is mainly sold through the Mombasa auction, which runs a two-day trading format. Secondary-grade quality tea is sold on Mondays and premium grade on Tuesdays.
Any tea that is not sold on a scheduled auction day is reprinted on a fresh auction catalogue and returned to the auction two weeks later. A seller can only bring back unsold crops to the auction twice.
The Mombasa auctions attract principal overseas interest from the top tea-consuming countries in the world with the UK, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Somalia, Canada, and Singapore as the major players. The buyers are spread over more than 50 countries globally.
