Tea withdrawn from auction declines on stable prices
A woman plucks tea on a farm in Kiptagich, Kuresoi South in Nakuru County along the Olenguruone- Bomet road in this photo taken on Monday, May 03, 2021. PHOTO | JOHN NJOROGE | NMG
The volume of tea withdrawn from the auction this week declined to 23 percent as the prices of the beverage held firmly for the second time in a row.
Data from the Mombasa auction shows the price of tea rallied to $2.25 (Sh265) a kilo this week from $2.24 (Sh262) in the previous sale.
The declining prices in the previous two weeks had seen huge volumes of teas withdrawn from the auctions to be introduced in future sales. Last week, 34 percent of the total stocks that had been offered for sale at the auction were withdrawn.
“There was fairly good demand at irregular levels following quality for the 185,900 packages (12.2 million kilos) available for sale with 141,620 packages (9.3 million Kilos) being sold,” said East African Tea Trade Association.
The falling prices had earlier been attributed to low demand of the commodity at the auction following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which disrupted the market. The Russian war on Ukraine cut the tea exports to the Asian nation by over half a billion in March, according to the regulator.
Tea Board of Kenya says the earnings from Russia declined by Sh598 million in March as volumes dropped 74 percent to 686,072 from 2.6 million kilos that were achieved in the corresponding period last year.
Farmers allied to the Kenya Tea Development Agency Holdings (KTDA) saw their earnings rise 42.4 percent to Sh62.8 billion in the year ended June when the price of the commodity rose by double digits.
The company had paid the farmers Sh44.15 billion a year earlier. The latest payout is the highest the growers have received in the last five years.
