Machines threaten tea-pickers’ jobs
What you need to know:
- Farmers and directors of Sireet Outgrowers Tea Company said at an annual meeting at the Nandi Hills Bears Club on Tuesday that unless they start using machines, farming will be uneconomical and they have to uproot tea bushes.
- “Unless the one per cent tax is abolished, auctioneers will shun Kenyan tea and buy from other countries in east and central Africa where it is cheaper and is not taxed,” he said.
Thousands of tea-pickers will lose their jobs after farmers introduced machines to harvest leaves.
The farmers exclusively supply their tea to multi-national companies and will introduce tea-picking machines to cut down on costs. Workers’ union are up in arms over this.
Farmers supplying Sireet Tea Company in Nandi Hills say high costs and falling global tea prices have persuaded them to use machines.
UNECONOMICAL
Farmers and directors of Sireet Outgrowers Tea Company said at an annual meeting at the Nandi Hills Bears Club on Tuesday that unless they start using machines, farming will be uneconomical and they have to uproot tea bushes.
“More than 20,000 tea farmers who are shareholders of the Sireet Outgrowers Tea Company have resolved that the use of machines is the only way they can continue farming.
High running costs are causing them heavy losses because Kenyan tea is fetching low prices in world markets,” the chairman, Mr Wilson Tuwei, said.
The high export tax at the Mombasa auction is also punitive.
“Unless the one per cent tax is abolished, auctioneers will shun Kenyan tea and buy from other countries in east and central Africa where it is cheaper and is not taxed,” he said.
FIGHT FOR WORKERS
The use of machines has sparked protests from the Kenya Plantation and Agriculture Workers Union, whose Nandi County secretary Eliakim Ochieng said they would condemn thousands to poverty.
Tea quality would also be affected, he said, adding, “The union will fight for workers’ rights.” A director at Sireet Tea Company, Mr Joseph Manjoy Lagat, said farmers earned Sh18 a kilo from the multi-nationals, while pickers pocket Sh11 for every kilogramme delivered. And yet, the farmer has to buy fertiliser and pay for transport.
“The union is also demanding that workers be paid 40 per cent of total earnings, which would see farmers spend Sh17 on pluckers while a farmer’s total earnings per kilo is Sh18,” he added.
“In Kericho and Bomet, farmers are already using machines and unless those in Nandi do the same, the industry will collapse,” he said.
