Directors elected by farmers in the just concluded Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) elections in Bomet County have vowed to ensure at least two new factories are built to decongest existing ones.
Rono Kipngeno, representing Ndaraweta Zone and director for Singorwet Zone Robert Rono said there has been delays in the collecting green leaves.
Rono said “We are facing an increased production that is causing congestion in Tirgaga, Kapkoros, and Motigo tea factories and we will ensure that at least two factories are set up soonest so that no produce goes to waste because of delays in collecting from buying centres.”
On his part Kipng’eno quipped, “Farmers should wait for good news, no produce will ever go to waste or farmers forced to stay overnight in buying centers while waiting for their green leaf to be collected.”
During campaigns many aspirants promised to end delays.
“Sadly, we are forced to pick tea twice a week because of weak policies by current management and we are demanding that the new directors take action so that we do not continue making losses,” said Rono.
David Ngeny from Tegat said, “We know that quality processed tea fetch very high prices which are replicated to farmers’ earnings and that is only possible when picked leaves are collected on time.”
Tegat Chemaner Zone director Simon Mutai who has been re-elected to represent asked farmers to embrace new clones of tea that are high-yielding so that factories will meet the demands.
Get more stories from our website: Sacco Review.
For comments and clarifications, write to: Saccoreview@
Kindly follow us via our social media pages on Facebook: Sacco Review Newspaper for timely updates
