Mechanization of Kenya's tea harvest, supported by tea multinationals, is opposed by labor unions.
Tea and politics go together in a nation where 3 million of the 22 million voters work in the industry, which is the largest private-sector employer.
Just days before the August 9 general elections, amid high unemployment, the government announced it would stop promoting the use of machines in picking tea. Whether this influenced the poll outcome is unclear, but the presidential contest was decided narrowly in favor of William S. Ruto, 55, the current deputy president.
Challenger Raila Odinga rejected the election result and announced he would contest the ballot count in court.
Kenya's unemployment rate of 6.2% in 2022 is more than twice the level of 2016, and Ruto's campaign focused on expanding jobs. “We will invest in sectors that deliberately create jobs so that we can turn the challenge of young people into an opportunity for us to grow our economy,” he told the Center for Strategic & International Studies. “We have a serious competitive advantage on matters to do with milk, coffee, tea, horticulture.”
Apollo Kiarii, chief executive of the Kenya Tea Growers Association — an umbrella body representing multinationals — faulted Munya over “his change of heart.” Kiarii described the decision “as an election carrot to woo thousands of casuals (casual workers) in the August 9 poll.”
Ruto was declared the winner on Aug. 15 with 50.49% of the vote, according to the electoral commission. Yet challenger Odinga told a press conference, “there is neither a legally and validly declared winner nor a president-elect.”
The agriculture sector in Kenya averages only two tractors for every 2,500 acres. But mechanization is controversial in rural counties, where unemployment is high, especially among young people, whose jobless rate is 14%. Kenya's median age is 20, and 70% of the nation's 56 million people reside in the countryside. The Kenya Tea Workers Union estimates that mechanization has resulted in the loss of at least 80,000 jobs.
In March, Munya directed the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) to expand the use of mechanical harvesters to all tea-growing zones. “Mechanical harvesting is critical as it will help reduce the cost of labor, increase earnings for farmers and protect their health,” Munya said. Harvesters were already used on tea farms in Nandi, Kericho, and Bomet in the western Rift Valley, which are among the top four tea-producing counties.
Munya's directive in March fell in line with a February 2021 ruling by Kenya's High Court that labor unions cannot prevent tea planters from mechanizing tea harvesting despite the likelihood of job losses. That decision overturned a 2018 appeal of a lower court ruling from 2010 that halted mechanization in tea.
Planters maintain that additional jobs have been created by mechanization. But unions say that workers displaced from large plantations cannot find jobs on small-scale farms.
Manual laborers receive 15 shillings per kilo for harvesting 45 kilos (about 100 pounds) daily. Machines typically pluck 400 kilos daily (about 1,000 pounds per day), saving up to 10 shillings per kilo. KTDA purchases the hand-held devices for about $200 each and provides the equipment and training to farmers.