Tea farmers in Kisii county want directors affiliated to tea factories in the area reduced from seven to two to reduce millions of allowances given to them and boost farmers’ earnings.
Dennis Ombachi, a chairman for an eleven member committee probing the cause of poor tea bonus in the area said farmers told them the directors are a burden to their progress.
Speaking to the press on Wednesday at agricultural training institute during the releasing of the preliminary Report, Ombachi said the farmers complained over the delay in collecting raw tea leaves from the buying centers to factories since it compromised the quality of the crop and affected prices in the international market.
The construction of more factories without corresponding tea production was hurting farmers who footed their construction, maintenance, and overhead costs Ombachi noted.
“Farmers have raised concern that the factories are underutilised and yet the Kenya Tea development Agency ( Agency) wants to construct more plants at the expense of farmers,’’ noted the chairman.
The chairman noted farmers proposed that the Agency be devolved to counties for farmers to market their processed tea and sell directly to local and international buyers.
Farmers also said they were deducted money for fertilizer by the factories management but were not told the amount and the duration to pay, creating room for exploitation.
He said the Committee will visit factories in Eastern, Central, Rift valley and Mombasa to find out the secrets of high payments for bonus and marketing of their tea.
Ombachi, whose committee will release a report in two weeks to be forwarded to the National Assembly and the Senate for action, appealed to farmers not to boycott picking tea but wait for the recommendations to aid boost the crop’s earnings.
“Some farmers are tempted to sell their tea to multinational companies which pay them well if the trend continues the tea factories will be shut and render millions of workers jobless,” said Ombachi.
He appealed to the national and county governments to construct roads linking tea buying centers to ease the collection of the tea leaves to curb rotting and urged chairmen of the centers to ensure tea clerks do not tamper with the weighing scale.