Tanzania tea output seen 13 percent up in 2008/09

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania expects its tea harvest to rise by 13 percent year on year to 37 million kg in the year to June 2009 due to good weather and more plantings, the head of the country's Tea Board said on Friday.
"In 2007/08 we produced 32,698 tonnes. For the coming year, we are forecasting about 37,000 tonnes," Mathias Assenga, director general of Tea Board of Tanzania, told Reuters.
Assenga said he expects the country will earn $41 million in 2008/09 from the export of about 29 million kg of tea, up from $37 million in 2007/08 from the export of 26.9 million kg.
The east African nation, a comparatively smaller tea producer than northern neighbour Kenya, produced close to 35 million kg in 2006/07.
Assenga said production will also rise once the rehabilitation of some 2,000 hectares on estates in southern and northeastern Tanzania has been completed and at least three factories have been restored.
"These are now being developed. If these things go well and the weather conditions do not change, we can achieve that production," he said.
The board had forecast 2007/08 production at 35 million kg, but it fell short because of little rain in some areas.
In 2005/06 drought hit production, which topped just over 28 million kg, while the year previous it was 32 million kg.
Assenga said about 50 percent of Tanzania's tea exports were sold through an auction at the Kenyan port of Mombasa in 2007/08, while the rest was sold directly to buyers in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The east African economy has about 22,700 ha under tea, of which 11,300 ha are estates and the rest belongs to about 32,000 small-hold farmers, most of them owning less than 1 ha of land.
Tanzania plans to boost tea harvests to 44 million kg by 2010/11 by hiking the annual yield to 1,500 kg per ha from 800 kg currently for smallholder farmers and to 2,500 kg per hectare from just over 2,000 kg per hectare for estate farmers.
CHALLENGES
Among the challenges smallholder farmers face are expensive inputs and rigorous phytosanitary requirements, such as Maximum Residue Levels, needed for export to Europe.
Assenga said poor infrastructure, including roads that are impassable during rainy seasons when tea production is at its peak, was a big obstacle.
"That is the time the crop cannot be brought to the factory. Some of the farmers are forced to carry it on their heads and bring it to the factory," Assenga said.
The Tea Board chief said inadequate labour was another major issue and that some estates had started trials on mechanised tea harvesting to help combat the problem.
The country has 23 processing factories, of which 22 are private.
Most of Tanzania's tea is grown in the Usambara region in the North, and in southern areas bordering the Great Rift Valley and Lake Malawi.
The farms are in altitudes of between 900 metres and 2,300 metres and get annual rainfall of between 1,400 mm and 3,000 mm.
Assenga said that in 2008/09, the government planned to produce 10 million tea seedlings to distribute to farmers, up from 6.3 million plants handed out in the previous year.