Tea factories in Kabarole operating under capacity

Tea factories within Kabarole district are operating under capacity due to lack of enough green leaf.

Kabarole district has a total of seven tea factories that are spread within the tea growing sub counties of Hakibale, Busoro, Kiko, Harugongo, Ruteete, Kabende and Kijura.

Of the seven factories, only one is privately owned while others belong to companies and farmers.

New Vision has established that some of the factories have closed some lines of production due to lack or raw materials.

"Because of the high cost of operation, we have closed down some of the factory machinery since we receive little green leaf" Thomas Joseph the factory manager Rwenzori tea commodities told the New Vision.

Thomas said that his factory now operates for only two hours a day and that the supply of green leaf has dropped from 200,000kg daily to only 70,000kg.

She says that government should help tea farmers to open up more land and provide fast growing tea clones that are also disease resistant.

"We have to plant more tea in order to sustain these factories but as manufactures we want government to help us with capital investment and to also subsidize prices of farm inputs" Thomas said.

Frank Tinkasimire the factory manager Toro Kahuna tea company in Hakibale Sub County attributed the drop in the quantity of green leaf to climate change.

"We are running under production because of climate change which we started experiencing since 2014. Unlike before we now experience a prolonged drought spell which dries almost all the tea gardens" Tinkasimire said.

Tinkasimire is optimistic that tea production may not be sustainable in future if government does not adapt to irrigation as a counter measure to the prolonged drought.

Henry Kasaija a tea farmer in Kabarole district told the New Vision that even the available plantations do not produce to their maximum due lack of fertilizers.

"Most tea farmers have failed to maintain their plantations to the required standard because they do not have the money to buy fertilizers. We have huge plantations but the output is very little" Kasaija said.

He disclosed that some farmers have abandoned their plantations while others have rented them out to businessmen who can afford to look after them.

Last year Kabarole received over 8m tea seedlings under the operation wealth creation government programme.

The seedlings were freely distributed to farmers in the district but Richard Rwabuhinga the district chairman says that the survival rate of those seedlings in very minimal given the dry spell.

"Whereas we appreciate governments move to offer free tea seedling to our farmers, we demand that these seedlings be delivered on the right time so that farmers plant when the rains are still on" Rwabuhinga said adding that "the challenge facing our factories today can only be addressed when farmers engage in tea farming as a serious business enterprise".