Tea growing in Uganda

Tea growing in Uganda Divine tea Tea business Contact us
Tea growing in Uganda started in 1900. It was introduced by the British Government which imported tea seed from India through the Royal Botanical Gardens in England, and planted it at Entebbe Botanical Gardens. More introductions of tea from India and other South Asian countries were first grown and tried out by European and Indian private tea estate owners in the central region. By 1914 tea growing reached Toro sub region and continued to expand to realize adequate quantities for processing into made tea. The first tea exports were made to the united kingdom in 1945.
The tea sector in Uganda is supposed to be an economic activity that is driving the economy through export and earning the country a big fraction of foreign exchange as one of the country’s major cash crop.
Tea is called green gold because of its value and scarcity in the world. The world has never gotten enough supply of tea as its not grown any where but under specific climatic conditions which are in specific countries.
Tea was first discovered in China in the 17th century and was first used as a herbal medicine which later spread to India. The oldest tree of tea is in china and when planting tea you don’t expect to uproot it and plant another one, apart from the recent improved clones which have to be adopted. So its important when your going to Plant tea use the best clone which will give you high yields of green leaf and good quality tea.
The increased demand for processed tea on the export market made the European and Asian estate owners to encourage the African small holder farmers to grow tea on outgrower contract arrangements to support their increasing processing capacity. By 1955 the Agricultural Enterprises Limited (AEL) a private company owned by the Uganda Development Cooperation (UDC) was formed to develop tea estates and factories on behalf of UDC. In pursuance of this function it developed 6 tea estates and 6 factories namely; Bugambe tea estate in Hoima, Muzizi tea estate in Kibale, Mwenge in kyenjojo, Kiko in kabarole, Ankole in Bushenyi and Salama in Mukono.
As more African small holder farmers joined tea growing in the 1950’s and 60’s a parastatal body called Uganda tea growers cooperation ( UTGC) was established in 1966 with a mandate to encourage associations of tea growers to form cooperative societies which would acquire processing factories. This resulted in the establishment of Igara, Kayonza, Mabale and Mpanga tea factories.
When soil testing was done in the 1960’s it was discovered that Uganda has 200,000 hectares suitable for growing tea while Kenya had 150,000 hectares. UTGC ( Uganda tea growers corporation) started at the same time with KTGC ( Kenya tea growers corporation). Uganda started with Mabale, Mpanga, Igara, and Kayonza Tea factories up to date only Buhweju has been added on as an outgrower factory. Kenya which started at the same time with Uganda to date has 66 Outgrower and 60 private tea factories and out of 150,000 hectares has utilized 140,000 hectares.
Kenya is the third largest producer of tea in the world with 303,308 metric tones of made tea fetching 1.2 billion dollars in the year 2016, which is equivalent to 4.32 trillion Ugandan shillings. China is the largest producer with 1,000,130 metric tones of made tea, India 900,094 metric tones.
Kenya tea sector has grown because of a number of reasons which we can copy to develop out tea sector. Uganda has 62,000 people under outgrower scheme while Kenya has 560,000 people under outgrower scheme.