http://allafrica.com/stories/200710310925.htmlGrowers affiliated to the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) should brace themselves for lower earnings as the firm moves to implement a Sh900 million mini hydro-dams project aimed at cutting tea processing costs.
The agency's managing director, Lerionka Tiampati, said a feasibility study recently carried out in key tea producing areas had identified six potential sites on which six mini-hydro dams would be put up each at a cost of Sh150 million beginning January next year.
"We envisage to have the dams in Meru, the Aberdares, Kisii, Nandi and Kericho areas so that our affiliate factories can have a supplement to the soaring costs of production due to huge power costs," he told a media briefing in Nairobi yesterday. The construction of the Meru project is expected to be commissioned first.
But in what would mean lesser earnings to growers, the projects will be financed through deductions from earnings. KTDA offers management services to over 424,000 small-scale tea farmers in 26 tea-growing districts.
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