By OUR CORRESPONDENT
Tea farmers from Nyamira and Kisii counties are now calling for adoption of scientific methods in tea quality testing, arguing that the current process is inaccurate and prone to manipulation.
This demand was made during a public hearing held by the National Assembly Committee on Agriculture and Livestock at Nyasiongo Tea Factory in Nyamira County and Kiamokama Tea Factory in Kisii County.
Led by the Committee Vice-chairperson, Brighton Yegon (Konoin), the Committee heard that the tea farmers from the region were paid Kshs 30 per Kilogram of tea in the recently paid bonus.
“They cannot continue using the issue of soil condition as an excuse to pay us this poorly yet tea farmers from Central Kenya earn double of what we get. We now demand for a shift to a scientific tea testing method that will be accurate as compared to depending on the tongue tasting buds,” George Mogire a tea farmer at Nyasiongo told the Committee.
Vincent Arisi, a board Member at Nyasiongo pointed an accusing finger at Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) and Tea Board of Kenya for the woes facing the farmers, claiming that they are conflicted.
“People from Tea Board of Kenya are conflicted some have even opened their own brokerage companies. Another thing ailing us is the private factories. In the East they only have one private factory, but coming to West, they licensed 42 private factories,” Arisi said.
Assuring the farmers of their commitment as legislators to find solutions, HYegon said that the Committee was going to summon all the parties accused before it to answer to the allegations.
“For the last 7 years the farmers have been getting deducted an amount towards hydropower that was meant to solve the high electricity cost but it has not been implemented. We have heard that electricity cost goes up to Kshs 100million which is very high,” he said.
Samuel Njane from Tea Board said that a committee had been formed to come up with a unified tea quality that will see both the private and public factories adhere to same green leaf quality.
The farmers also complained of being deducted fertilizer fee from their bonus despite the accrued deductions on their monthly pay slips of Kshs 1.50 per Kg.
Among the other issues the farmers called on the government to step in are poor road networks and enabling direct sales of tea by factories.
