Small-holder tea farmers hanker after own tea factories

MNAKU MBANI

SEVEN Associations of small-holder tea growers on Tanzania Mainland are planning to set up tea processing factories in the country, doing so on their own – or as joint ventures with other investors if it comes to the crunch.

Doing this is one surefire way of maximising their incomes and other benefits from tea farming, say the Associations, which represent growers in  Njombe, Lupembe, Kilolo, Korogwe, Usambara, Dabaga and Tarime areas.

According to George Kyejo, chairman the Tanzania Small-holder Tea Growers Association (TaSTGA) – the umbrella organisation of the G-7 Associations – the proposed factories would also go a long way in reducing post-harvest losses which are currently incurred by farmers partly as a result of poor transport infrastructure from farm to factory elsewhere.

Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Association in Dar recently, Kyejo stressed that establishing own-factories would also help to boost tea production in Tanzania, which has been falling steadily beginning in the early 1990s.

The Tarime Tea Company chairman, Reuben Makuri, said they have already formed a District Task Force under the chairmanship of the  district commissioner to chart out plans for establishing the proposed factories.

The Task Force is already collaborating with the Tarime Association in sensitising farmers on the importance of increasing production – doing so especially through increasing the acreage under tea plantation – before a processing factory can have meaning on the ground.

Tarime District – which, incidentally, is famous for cultivating marijuana, but is already taking measures to replace that with tea farming – already has a total of 1.6 million tea seedlings in various nurseries.

According to Makuri, until March this year, only “46 groups of small-holder tea farmers had started to grow tea...”

Furthermore, tea-planting speed is still low – even as some farmers opt to cultivate tobacco which is harvested in just three months after planting.

Officials of the umbrella tea growers Association noted that Tarime farmers have cultivated only 15 hectare of tea so far... In the event, it is considered that its tea production is still too low to support its own tea-processing factory.

According to the officials, before the Tarime farmers can start to seriously think about having their own factory, they need to increase  the acreage under tea to at least 500 hectares!

On the other hand, plans are already way ahead of establishing a company that will manage the planned factory in Usambara.

Richard Mbughuni, the vice-chairman of Usambara Tea Growers Association (UTEGA), says the local District Council, Farmers Associations and private individuals will be shareholders in the  proposed factory.

The immediate task is “to continue sensitizing people to increase tea production to the ratio of at least one hectare per person,” Mbughuni says.

The chairman of the Kilolo Tea Company, Vallence Kihwaga, said the company is also continuing to sensitize people to increase production ahead of establishing a factory.

Kihwaga noted that they have already formed a joint venture involving 22 small farmers groups who own 80 per cent shares of the proposed factory, with the remaining 20 per cent going to the local government authority.

However, due to the poor resources that the small farmers have, the   stakeholders are still looking for other prospective investors in the proposed factory.

“We are now engaged in more tea planting; we have bought tractors and lorries to make sure that we meet demand for the planned factory's production capacity,h he told the meeting.

In Dabaga, farmers plan to put 250 more hectares under tea in order to increase production that would meet with demand of the planned factory.

For his part, the chairman of the Dabaga Tea Association, George Kyejo, said the Association is seeking a soft loan at the agricultural lending window of the Tanzania Investment Bank, with which to implement its factory project.

“We have also insisted upon our members to increase production –  especially individual farmers – and the response is encouraging,” he said when presenting the project update at the meeting.

In Njombe District where tea cultivation under the small-holder scheme formally started as early as in 2002 with the support of the Tanzania Tea Board, the planned factory would help to reduce transport costs. Currently they have to transport their products for sale to the Kibena Tea Company.

The chairman of the Iguminyi Tea Association, Fr. Arnold Ngolle,  said his Association has already identified a suitable area for constructing a tea factory, and detailed survey of same is continuing.

Construction of buildings for two factories is already in progress in Lupembe, and only TTB authority is awaited.

One senior official of the parent Small-holder Farmers Association  told the members at the meeting that “most people are discouraged from tea farming mainly because of the low returns from the sub-sector.”

It has also been suggested that “lack of transparency in tea marketing, and a lack of enough tea processing factories, are the main factors which contribute to dwarfing the industry in Tanzania.”