Increase in tea earnings should impact farmers

Editor, RE: Rwanda’s tea export earnings more than double to $18.8m in first quarter of 2016 (The New Times, April 27, 2016) Does increased revenue from tea translate into motivation of tea farmers or workers? This should set the ball rolling into the hands of managers of tea factories and outgrowers’ cooperatives in order to keep momentum. Wanainchi’s morale will push our ‘tea success’ to greater heights; however, we need to sustain our efforts on governance and accountability of cooperatives. Local Governments need not hesitate to harness this opportunity to campaign for Girinka and financial literacy in order to make use of this “tea boom” in order to offset future threats in tea production and export. Diversification of income at household level is important to tea farmers to avoid over dependence on tea hence their morale would remain high even in hard times as far as tea production and export are concerned. JK

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Increase in tea earnings should impact farmers