The proposed Crops (Tea Industry) Regulations 2020 that were recently unveiled by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya will strangle smallholder tea farmers if adopted, a legal expert has said. Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) lawyer, Benson Millimo, has said the regulations will significantly reduce tea farmers' earnings; thereby achieving the opposite result of what their intended objective was. "What these tea regulations would actually do is increase bureaucracy seeing that what the Cabinet Secretary has done is to bring in more regulations and conditions on matters of tea farming,” he added. He said smallholder tea farmers risk losing direct control of the management of the tea chain if the proposed regulations are passed saying the same fate met coffee and sugarcane farmers. "If you tell the tea farmer they cannot trade with their companies, and that the directors who have been elected cannot sit in these companies, then you are simply telling the tea farmer, offload your shares," he added.

Source: The Star May 07, 2020 00:56 UTC