Tea farmers to get relief from new tea breed

Njombe. Thousands of tea farmers, who have been facing low harvest due to drought, will soon get relief after introduction of new technology that seeks to put in place new tea breeds in the region.

The management team of non-governmental organisation for sustainable tea farming in Njombe Region (NOSC), said recently that the new tea breed imported from Kenya is expected to reap bumper harvests in the forthcoming years.

“We have already planted 2.6 million seedlings for distribution to smallholder tea farmers in several villages. Known as CFS 150, the new breed has been imported from Kenya,” the NOSC general manager Mr Albert Kavia told Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) stakeholders who visited the area recently.

Mr Kavia said that such new tea breed is a result of long term research work done by defunct East African Tea Research Institute which was based in Kenya.

“The Tea Research Institute of Tanzania has already approved the tea clone that has capacity to conserve moisture content during dry period. We are working hard to ensure that such new breed is accessible to many farmers,” he said.

The NOSC tea extension officer, Mr Boaz Malekela said that coupled with improvement of traditional irrigation system, the new tea breed was set to help farmers to recover farming costs due to rising output.

“With support of Japanese corporation, Somitomo, the new irrigation technology for tea farmers has also been in introduced,” Malekela said.

The new tea breed is among four tea clones emanated from five years of collaboration between Tea Research Institute of Tanzania (TRIT) and Tea Research Foundation of Kenya (TRFK), according TRIT report.