|
|
Kenya: Tea Farmers Adopt New Polls System
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Nation (Nairobi)
6 May 2008
Posted to the web 6 May 2008
Muchiri Gitonga
Nairobi
Small-scale tea farmers will Tuesday elect a third of their respective tea factories directors using a new system.
But the process started Monday with the election of tea-buying centre committee members.
This is the first time since the industry was liberalised that tea growers will vote for their directors using the strength of one's shareholding instead of using one vote per shareholder.
Kenya Tea Development Agency's corporate communications manager Charles Kimathi said last week that the new system was part of proposals by tea farmers to the task force whose report was presented to former Agriculture minister Kipruto arap Kirwa in August 2007.
Some farmers have however opted to use the old system due to the sensitivity of applying the new system.
Most of the farmers who had initially been opposed to the new system seemed to soften their stance and were Monday preparing for today's election of directors.
"We learnt that there is little we could to change the new system since it is now a law," a farmer from Othaya Mr Kabingu Wambugu told the Nation.
Farmers expect the directors address the issue of rising costs of farm inputs such as fertilisers which they get from the agency on credit. Last season the farmers bought fertiliser at Sh1,250 per bag but the price is expected to rise to Sh2,400.
"Although the rate for fertiliser is not out, we are expecting that it to be high and we would like the directors to ensure that growers can afford it," Mr Wambugu said.
The new directors will be under pressure to cut factory expenditures especially on fuel and pass the savings to their shareholders. Last week, the farmers received mini-bonus at lowest ever rate of Sh3 per kilo of green leaf instead of the usual Sh5 per kilo.
Shareholders are also pressing for a change of dollar as the currency of tea-trade because of its weakening position.
The country's 430,000 small-scale tea farmers under the agency have of late been experiencing shrinking income from the cash crop due to various factors that range from high cost of labour to bad weather.
An opinion leader in tea industry matters Mr Naftali Njoroge told the Nation the reforms that the industry underwent eight years ago have unknowingly given labourers an upper hand in the industry decisions as opposed to the serious producers.
He argued majority of small-scale tea farmers have between 500 and 1,000 tea-bushes which is not viable each with an average annual production of 1.5 kilos. Many of them therefore augment their income as labourers.
Fragmented
"It's surprising that such producers were regarded equally with farmers with a bigger stake in the industry and would be accorded the same voting," said Mr Njoroge.
|
Due to population pressure the area under tea has been fragmented into small holdings that barely make economic sense.
Mr Njoroge says that during the formative stages of the local tea industry potential farmers would be required to have a minimum of 3,500 tea-bushes under one acre of land. The producer price then depended on one's production.
But all this changed after KTDA replaced the Special Crops Development Authority.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
