The Tea Farmer's Betrayal: Why Kericho's Wealth Never Reaches Its People
Drive through Kericho County and you will see some of the most beautiful landscapes in Kenya. Rolling green hills covered in tea as far as the eye can see. This is one of the most productive agricultural regions in East Africa.
Now stop the car and talk to the farmer picking those tea leaves.
Ask them how much they earned last month. Ask them whether they can afford to send all their children to secondary school. Ask them whether they have health insurance. Ask them about their retirement plan.
The answers will break your heart.
The Numbers Do Not Lie
Kenya is one of the largest tea exporters in the world. Kericho County is at the heart of that industry. The tea sector generates over 130 billion shillings annually in export revenue.
Yet the average smallholder tea farmer in Kericho earns a fraction of what their labour is worth. The bonus they wait for all year — the one that is supposed to make the sacrifice worthwhile — barely covers school fees. Some years it does not even do that.
Where does the money go? This is the question every farmer asks, and the question every leader avoids answering clearly.
The Value Chain Is Designed Against the Farmer
The problem is structural. It is built into the system.
Factory-Level Losses
Tea leaves lose value the moment they leave the farmer's hands. By the time the tea reaches the auction in Mombasa, the farmer's share has been whittled down by:
- Management costs at the factory level that are often inflated
- Transport and logistics charges that nobody audits
- Administrative overhead that grows every year while farmer payments stagnate
The farmer bears all the risk — drought, frost, rising input costs — but captures the smallest share of the final price.
The Auction System
The Mombasa tea auction is one of the oldest commodity trading systems in Africa. But old does not mean fair. The auction system has been criticised for decades for keeping prices artificially low while international buyers and brokers capture the real value.
Kenyan tea is sold as a commodity — a bulk product with no brand, no premium, and no direct relationship between the farmer and the final consumer. Meanwhile, the same tea is repackaged in London, Dubai, and Karachi under premium brands and sold at ten times the auction price.
The farmer sees none of that markup.
Cooperative Mismanagement
Tea cooperatives and factory companies were meant to give farmers collective bargaining power. In many cases, they have become vehicles for political patronage and mismanagement instead.
Directors who have served for decades without meaningful oversight. AGMs where farmers are herded through approvals without understanding the financial statements. Management contracts awarded to connected individuals rather than competent professionals.
The cooperative model is sound. The implementation has betrayed the farmer.
What Must Change
1. Value Addition at Source
Why are we exporting raw tea and importing finished products? Kericho County should be home to processing plants that produce packaged, branded tea for both domestic and export markets. Every stage of processing that happens locally means more money staying in the county and more jobs for our people.
2. Direct Market Access
Smallholder farmers must be connected to markets beyond the Mombasa auction. Digital platforms, direct trade agreements with international buyers, and county-supported branding initiatives can help farmers capture a larger share of the final price.
3. Transparent Factory Governance
Every tea factory should publish audited financial statements that farmers can actually understand. Directors should face term limits. Management should be hired competitively, not politically. And farmer education programmes should ensure that every cooperative member can read a balance sheet.
4. Diversification
Tea monoculture is a risk. When prices drop, the entire county suffers. We must support farmers to diversify into dairy, avocados, macadamia, and other high-value crops that can supplement tea income and provide resilience against market shocks.
5. Political Will
Every politician in Kericho talks about supporting farmers during campaigns. The real question is what they do between elections. Farmer welfare must be a legislative priority, not a campaign slogan.
This Is Personal
I am a farmer. I understand what it means to work the land and wonder whether the harvest will be enough. The tea farmers of Kericho County are not asking for charity. They are asking for fairness.
They grow one of the most valuable crops in the world. They deserve to share in that value.
Until our leaders — from the county assembly to the national government — take this seriously, the tea farmer's betrayal will continue. And the green hills of Kericho will remain a monument to wealth that was created here but enjoyed elsewhere.
If you are a tea farmer in Kericho County, I want to hear your story. What challenges do you face? What solutions do you believe in? Reach out to me — your voice matters more than any politician's promise.