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Skip to content All News Sport Culture Lifestyle Paul Kipsigei plucks tea at his home in Kenya (Athony Odamo/Fairtrade) Kenyan tea smallholders who supply half of the black tea consumed across Britain have warned that increasingly volatile weather patterns, including severe hailstorms, drought, and unseasonal heat, are causing crop yields and quality to collapse. Despite higher UK supermarket prices and rising global tea costs, impoverished growers in regions such as Kericho and Bomet see little financial gain, as brokers, intermediaries, and large corporations continue to absorb the vast majority of profits. Major local farming cooperatives like Fintea have reported production drops of up to 30 per cent during peak months, leaving many agricultural workers unable to afford basic family living expenses, meals, or school fees, let alone invest in future climate adaptation.
The proportion of tea sold by Fintea on Fairtrade terms has dropped from 5 per cent five years ago to under 1 per cent, drastically reducing the premium funding available for essential social projects and climate resilience measures. Supermarket chain Lidl has committed to sourcing more tea from Fintea on Fairtrade terms to help boost local incomes, prompting the Fairtrade Foundation to call on more British businesses to pay fair prices to safeguard vulnerable farmers. In full Tea shortage warning as climate crisis sees production plummet and prices soar More bulletins Thank you for registering Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in
Source: The Independent
