The over 600,000 smallholder farmers spread across 16 tea growing counties in the country have toiled and moiled for years. The Kenya Tea Sector Lobby has announced that good tidings are on the way. It said small scale farmers have encountered untold suffering in the hands of the Kenya Tea Development Agency. “This is a step in the right direction and the tea sector has another chance to be a leading source of foreign exchange and a major employer in Kenya,"Kenya Tea Sector Lobby chairman Irungu Nyakera said in a statement. “This would further expose tea farmers to predatory lending from financial institutions, against their tea proceeds, a practice that demoralised thousands of farmers,” he said.

Source: The Star April 18, 2020 10:07 UTC