Limpopo province to produce uniquely South African tea

A new blend of South African tea will be produced in Limpopo before the end of 2007, agriculture minister Lulu Xingwana announced on April 12. "South Africans drink tea that is derived from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Cameroon and a bit from Kenya. I have been assured by the Limpopo province and its leadership that a tea with a South African taste will be launched by November 1," Ms. Xingwana told a land reform meeting near Thohoyandou.

The tea is expected to be produced on the Tshivhase and Mukumbani tea estates in the Vhembe district. The department took over the running of the farms after commercial tea producer Sapekoe announced the retrenchment of over 3,000 workers from four estates in the province in late 2004.

Sapekoe said it was no longer profitable to produce black tea locally. The company cited reasons which included high minimum wages, the strong rand, lack of protection against tea imports from Southern African Development Community countries, land claims on the tea estates and high production costs.

Xingwana said as part of the government's turnaround strategy for the Vhembe estates, ownership had gone to the community. Plot owners had been given ten hectares of land each by the traditional council in the form of rental or lease for a number of agreed years.

Management staff had been recruited since September 2006 and the two estates now jointly employed 2 154 workers who took home R25,6 ($3.5 million) million in wages a year. The tea was grown and processed in the Mukumbani tea factory which would be owned by the local community. The estate will be handed over to the Tshivhase territorial council on 1 April 2008.

"The factory is now in production process and about 95 545kg of green leaves has been harvested and 60 751kg of black tea produced. "At R9 ($1.25) per kilogram, a total of R547,000 ($76,000) was realised for March 2007," said Xingwana. She said Limpopo's agriculture department and its partners, including MANFerrostaal SA, had agreed that the tea estates would be supported until only the end of March 2008. "Thereafter, the project will be self-sustaining if the technology acquisition, quality experts and management regime, farmer selection criteria and good production practices are implemented."

The department had also agreed to acquire the skills of Kenyan experts to revamp the province's tea industry and introduce value-added technology. Kenya is the world's third largest producer of tea after Sri Lanka and India. "At the same time the province will develop its own expertise by sending young farmers and qualified science graduates to do additional tertiary training at Kenyan tea institutions."

However, Xingwana said Limpopo's emerging tea producers faced a number of challenges. These include the need for a tarred road and the correction of structural defects in the Mukumbani processing plant to improve productivity. Research capacity in black tea also needed to be developed at the Venda University of Technology.

Xingwana said the government would invest about R44 million ($6 million) over the next year to revamp the nearby Northern tea estate and that additional loan funding of R20 million had been secured from MANFerrostaal.

BuaNews