Tea output in Nandi, Kenya drops 37% from drought.(World News: Coffee and Tea Reports from the Front Line)

NAIROBI -- The cold season has seen the production of tea by small scale farmers in the larger Nandi dropping by 37% in the past one month, according to the Kenya Tea Development Agency's Chebut factory manager Emilio Nyaga.

Nyaga said that during normal season, the Chebut factory handles over 80,000kg of green leaf tea daily. The figure has now dropped to about 50,000kg per day. Nyaga said unless the rains resumed soon, tea production in the area could drop further.

Tea processing at the Chebut factory suffered during last year's post-election violence. The factory at the time processed less than 500,000kg of tea in January and February last year. When peace resumed, the factory processed more than 2.5 million kilos of tea per month between May and October last year.

The KTDA regional manager for North Rift, Josephat Michoma, said KTDA had supplied 80,000 bags of fertilizer to small-scale tea growers in the region.

The official said the second KTDA factory at Kaptumo in Nandi South is complete and would be operational from July. He said the newly-built factory was financed through the African Development Bank and small scale farmers from the North rift region at the cost of Sh470 million. The official said KTDA factories at Kapsara, Chebut and Mudete had acquired new lorries, which allowed the agency cut down costs.

He added the tea agency was in the process of acquiring new vehicles to ensure tea was delivered to factories without delay.

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