Tanzania Tea Production May Climb 9.4% as Farms Rehabilitated

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-largest tea grower, may produce 9.4 percent more of the leaf this season following the rehabilitation of poorly managed estates, the industry regulator said.

Production in the East African nation may increase to 35,000 metric tons in the 12 months through June, from 32,000 tons a year earlier and 32,697 tons in 2007-08, the state-run Tea Board of Tanzania said today in an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg News.

Tea production last season was 14 percent below target after two years of inadequate rainfall cut yields, it said.

The projected increase this year follows upgrades to “neglected” plantations in tea-growing areas, the start of government subsidies for small-scale farmers and the renovation of processing factories, it said.

Four-fifths of Tanzania’s tea is sold to foreign buyers including South Africa, the U.K., Netherlands, Pakistan, Germany, Ireland, United Arab Emirates and India. About half of the country’s exports are channeled through the world’s biggest tea auction in Mombasa, a port city in neighboring Kenya.

Tanzania earned about $36 million from tea shipments in the year through June 2009, compared with $37.2 million a year earlier, the board said.

As many as 36,000 smallholder famers cultivate one-third of Tanzania’s tea crop, while larger estate-owners such as Unilever Plc. grow the rest, mainly in the southern highlands of the Iringa region.

Tanzania ranks behind Kenya, Malawi and Uganda in terms of tea production in Africa, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization’s Web site.

Source:bloomberg.com/