Disgruntled tea farmers to stage protests over poor bonus payment

Tea farmers from Kimunye Tea Factory, Kirinyaga, are planning to stage a peaceful demonstration at the entity to push Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for increased bonus.

The farmers were dissatisfied with the bonus of Sh51 per kilo saying their returns do not compare to the tea exchange in Mombasa which rated their tea as number two in quality. They anticipated a bonus of Sh60 and above per kilo.

Wambugu Kanake, a farmer said the demonstrations will be held on Monday September 30 and October 7 this year.

"After a meeting with directors, farm unit managers and farmers, we agreed that no farmer will go to the shamba to pick their tea. We will have a peaceful demo so as to force KTDA for additional bonus, we cannot be producing best quality tea then factories number 30 get a higher bonus than us," he said.

He further stated that currently the factory has been overwhelmed by the large amounts of tea leaves following five days of farmer's go slow.

"We had not picked tea for about five days when we were demonstrating. When we resumed, there were large amount of tea leaves to be picked. This large quantity of tea leaves has made it hard for the factory to process tea on time, hence it is packed at the factory's waiting bay waiting to be processed," he added.

Kanake also stated that the climatic condition from cold to a warm season has also contributed to the fast growth of tea leaves seeing that Kimunye is in a cold area;-at the slopes of Mt. Kenya.