Kenya Tea Development Agency Imports 47,800 Tonnes of Subsidised Fertiliser for Smallholder Tea Farmers

Mombasa, Kenya — The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has received a shipment of 47,800 tonnes of fertiliser, aimed at aiding over 650,000 smallholder tea farmers across the nation. The shipment was flagged off by Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development Mithika Linturi at the Port of Mombasa.

According to the Kenya News Agency, the fertiliser consignment arrived at the port on Monday and was distributed earlier today. Linturi noted that the government’s goal is to bolster harvests this year. To that end, the government plans to bring in another shipment within two weeks. The overall fertiliser consumption by tea farmers is over 95,000 metric tonnes.

Linturi also urged farmers to make timely use of the fertiliser, particularly as the rainy season has commenced. “This is timely as the rains have just set in, and the application of fertiliser at the right time has a serious bearing on production,” Linturi stated.

The Cabinet Secretary highlighted ongoing government efforts to enact tea reforms that will benefit farmers through legal policies and administrative mechanisms. “The government continually tries to support KTDA and farmers so that they get fertilisers at affordable prices,” Linturi added, revealing that the cost of a 50-kg bag of fertiliser had been reduced from Sh. 3500 last year to Sh. 2500 under the subsidy program.

Linturi encouraged farmers to take advantage of these subsidies to increase both food production and productivity in the country. He disclosed that the government has various programmes in place to add value to tea production, including installing processing lines capable of producing orthodox tea, which fetches higher prices globally.