Roughly 700,000 smallholder tea farmers in Kenya are receiving their annual second payment, or bonus, for green leaf delivered to KTDA-managed factories during the 2025/26 financial year. This time each factory announced its own rate after auditing its books, rather than the figures being set centrally.
Many of those rates are down. Rukuriri, the top payer, is offering KES 50 per kilogram, compared with KES 57.50 a year earlier, while Ngere slipped from 53.10 to 48. Not every factory fell: Momul rose from 32.50 to 40.50. Leaf deliveries over the first eleven months also dropped, to about 1.09 billion kg from 1.14 billion.
KTDA Holding chairman Enos Njeru blames much of the squeeze on the new 0.8% export levy, which he says has made Kenyan tea pricier and led some overseas buyers to cut purchases. Industry experts also point to higher fuel and shipping costs. Kenya remains one of the world's leading exporters of black tea.
Source: Food Business Africa