Govt under pressure over post harvest losses in tea production
Tea nursery bed owners had disagreed with the ministry of agriculture, animal industry and fisheries on the criteria to be used to clear their debt when they lost their seedlings to drought between 2016 and 2017. They had started supplying seedlings to tea farmers after president Museveni ordered the implementation of tea nursery bed projects in Southwestern Uganda as a way of boosting tea production. In the meeting with ministers Frank Tumwebaze, Chris Baryomunsi and David Bahati, government agreed to pay 40 per cent of the total cost incurred by the nursery bed owners which would total 47 billion shillings. The disagreement was sparked when government decided on the second verification of tea operators using the Global Positioning System to measure the size of their gardens, which farmers claim, lessened the initial amount of money to be paid to each nursery bed owner.
