Honde Valley Tea Growers Association

The association was formed in 1990 with the main purpose of bringing all the 1200 + smallholder tea farmers together.This helped the farmers voice to be heard in various circles like bargaining for better prices ,acquiring loans/inputs and dissemination of information was made easier.The total area under tea is about 600ha,with an a potential to produce 6 million kgs annually.Themain variety is the highly productive clonal tea SFS 150.The current production is however about 1,5million kgs .The drop in production has been for various reasons such as lack of inputs,farmers are demoralized and climate change among other things.The Association is led by a 7member executive .There are 9 sub committees under the executive and this is called the full council.The farmers used to subscribe to the association annually to keep the execuctive running ,until recently when the farmers are no.longer able to do it due to the economic situation affecting the entire country and tea farmers are no exception.