More than 650,000 tea farmers will from July start receiving subsidised fertiliser from the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) following the arrival of 50,500 metric tons of fertilizer at the Port of Mombasa.
In May, KTDA group chief executive Lerionka Tiampati said they had procured 95,000 tonnes of fertiliser at KSh 3.5 billion.
The subsidised fertiliser is supplied through KTDA’s supply programme for farmers’ through a financing deal with Standard Chartered Bank.
The amount of fertilizer that each farmer gets is based on the number of tea bushes they have. On average, one 50kg bag of fertilizer is applied on 700 bushes.
Annually, KTDA field services staff take orders from farmers for their fertilizer requirements in an exercise dubbed ‘fertilizer recruitment’ which takes place in November and December.
In 2018, KTDA procured and distributed fertilizer for farmers at KSh1,774 per 50kg bag against the prevailing market of Kshs 2700.
KTDA Holdings Ltd manages 69 factories in the small-scale tea sub-sector in Kenya.
