Process the green leaf, Taml urges smallholder tea growers

The Tea Association of Malawi (Taml), a grouping of large tea estate growers, has urged smallholder growers to graduate from selling green leaf and consider setting up small factories to do the processing.

Taml chief executive officer Clement Thindwa cautioned the growers under the newly constituted National Smallholder Tea Growers Association (Nstga), a grouping of five smallholder tea growers, against selling green leaf, saying doing so would affect their development efforts.

“If you continue selling green leaf [to the factories], you will not develop. There is need for you to set up a factory in Thyolo and Mulanje to be processing tea on your own,” advised Thindwa at the association’s annual general meeting (AGM) at Thyolo Sports Clubs on Friday where association’s members elected new office bearers.

Since time immemorial, smallholder tea growers have been selling unprocessed leaf to large estate factories who in turn add value to the leaf before it is exported.

Industry experts argue that if smallholder growers sell processed tea, their earnings could also increase, hence, improving their wellbeing.

Grey Nyandule, controller of agriculture services in the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, urged the smallholders to take tea growing as a business.

“You have to engage an extra gear and take care of your tea. You also have to increase hectarage to grow more tea for you to earn more. I will also encourage you to add value to the crop,” he said.

On his part, Tea Research Foundation for Central Africa (Trfca) director Albert Changaya encouraged the growers to increase the land on which they grow the crop and embrace new technologies.

“As smallholder farmers, you still have land on which you can grow the crop unlike the estates. Don’t be afraid to start growing new varieties,” he said.

Trfca has over the years been developing new tea varieties or cultivars that mature within a short space of time, are resistant to diseases and high yielding.

Taml figures show that overall, national tea exports have continued to decline over the past year to 37 000 metric tons in 2013 from 49 000  metric tons the year before, raising the need for the industry to explore other notable emerging markets such as Pakistan, Egypt, Singapore and the US, among others.

The industry is also being daunted by poor tea prices on average for all other grades except pickled dust (PD) and special cultivars (SC) grades that are fetching goods prices on the market.

At the AGM, Frederick Mkwapatira of Sukambizi Tea Growers Association in Mulanje was elected the chairperson, deputised by Richard Chisuse of Eastern Outgrowers Trust in Thyolo. Results of the position of secretary general won by Christopher Maunde of Mulanje were withheld after members from Thyolo protested.