Tea growers who do not belong to associations, young people less interested in tea growing, these are among the challenges facing the tea sector in Burundi. The Office du thé du Burundi (OTB) is delighted with the place occupied by Burundian tea at the international level and calls for an increase in production. “Young people are not interested in
Tea growers who do not belong to associations, young people less interested in tea growing, these are among the challenges facing the tea sector in Burundi. The Office du thé du Burundi (OTB) is delighted with the place occupied by Burundian tea at the international level and calls for an increase in production.
“Young people are not interested in growing tea. Many fields belonging to former tea growers have been abandoned. This means that production is still low,” said Paul Manirakiza, representative of tea producers, at the opening of the 5th edition of the African tea convention and exhibition on July 20. For him, we must educate young people so that they can become more involved in tea growing.
He regrets that there are still tea growers who do not belong to associations and cooperatives. And to call on the producers to come together in order to increase production. “All producers must work in synergy. In this case, it will be easy to mobilize technical and financial support”.
This representative of tea growers also criticizes the delay in the supply of agricultural inputs.
To increase production, he adds, the prices of green tea leaves must also be revised. “Let the price per kilogram of green leaves go from 280 BIF to 500 BIF. This may encourage producers to take a greater interest in this crop and to produce in sufficient quantity and quality”.
He appreciates private investment in the tea sector: “Provided that these investors put forward the interests of the producer”.
The commercial director at the Office du thé du Burundi (OTB), Emmanuel Ndayiziga, is delighted that Burundian tea ranks second in terms of quality in Africa.
However, he points out that production is still low: “OTB produces about 12,000 tons per year. This amount is not enough”. To remedy this, he said that a 6th processing plant will be built in Matana in Bururi province in the south of the country. For him, the goal is to reach about 20 thousand tons.
According to the commercial director of the OTB, Burundi needs more foreign exchange from the marketing of tea for the execution of other development projects in the country: “Thus, the country must be a reference in the production , processing and marketing of tea”.