Kenyan tea farmers conducting special elections at 52 tea factories contested by boards of directors that generally oppose tea sector reforms mandated in the Tea Act of 2020. In the past, ballots were cast according to shares based on production. The new law introduces a new method for casting ballots, one-farm, one-vote. There are an estimated 640,000 tea farms and 69 tea factories producing tea for export valued at $360 million in 2019.
Tea factory elections are routine, as a rule. Now hotly contested board seats at 52 Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) factories have riled local farm communities and delayed industry reforms mandated in the national Tea Act signed in December.
KTDA factories purchase tea leaves from 600,000 smallholders who produce more than 80% of the country’s tea, a commodity that generates about 4% of Kenya’s gross domestic product.
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Minister of Agriculture Peter Munya say they are determined to go forward with special elections. Farmers exercising one-man, one-vote privileges are likely to unseat KTDA directors elected under the previous rules where votes were tied to production. In recent elections, reformists unseated KTDA's long-serving directors while discouraging disgruntled activists seeking to expand the reforms beyond the newly written law.
In response, KTDA directors vowed to boycott tea factory elections, ordering farmers to stay away from polls. Samuel Mwafrika, one of 18 directors at the Kathangariri Tea Factory, told local media, "Only KTDA is mandated to call elections and therefore we shall not participate in the ones ordered by the government."
Angered by delays in the election timetable that was to conclude April 1, President Kenyatta in February ordered voting to conclude within 60 days. KTDA objected to the timetable in court. In late March, a Nairobi court overturned the presidential executive order. Elections suspended in some instances since last fall are now uncertain. Seven factories in Murang’a county already ousted KTDA’s slate on a vote of no confidence with farmers in four additional county locations scheduled to vote by April.
Tea Act Reforms
The Tea Act assigns factory oversight to the newly re-established Kenya Tea Board. KTDA currently manages most of the country's 69 farmer-owned factories, which are situated in 16 counties. KTDA contends that special elections can only be called by local farmers, not from Nairobi.
Kenyatta argues that the elections are essential to implement Tea Act reforms. He tasked regional coordinators in the Central, Eastern, Nyanza, and Rift Valley to ensure compliance.
"We are entertaining zero chance that the tea reforms will flop. We have a duty to restore hopes of 600, 000 farmers...," Central Region coordinator Wilfred Nyagwanga told the Nation.
In the same news article, Agriculture Minister Munya said, "the government will not relent in effecting changes in KTDA that are aimed at easing off pressure from tea farmers.”
Kenya’s Attorney General launched a forensic investigation of statutory and regulatory breaches involving possible financial impropriety by former and outgoing KTDA factory managers.
An Abundance of Tea
Complicating the situation is an abundance of raw leaf and price volatility. Kenya ended 2020 with a 13% downturn in prices for the seven months ending January 2021. Green leaf deliveries by farmers remain high, and prices are above $2 per kilo, but logistical hurdles now interfere with export volumes at the Mombasa auction.
Last year, smallholders delivered 1.5 billion kilos of green leaf to KTDA factories, up from 1.13 billion kilos in (2018/2019) a 28.7% increase in production.
In 2020 Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that smallholders across the country, including those delivering to KTDA-managed factories, increased the acreage under tea to 163,000 hectares, up from 141,800 ha in 2018. This growth increased tea volumes on offer in
Mombasa is holding down prices.
In December, Sen. Peter Ndwiga, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee that championed the Tea Act, told the House that KTDA operations had become so “opaque” that farmers were miserable.
In an article published in Farm Kenya, Ndwiga said tea reforms are long overdue. He cited entrenched conflicts of interest, a lack of transparency, impunity in the tea industry that includes disobeying court orders, and corruption that has killed many sectors, including sugar maize.
“We want all small-scale farmers to feel ownership of their tea factories,” he said.