Development and Neo-colonialism in the Small-scale Tea Sector in Kenya

Abstract

Despite legal and institutional reforms in the tea The Tea Act, Cap 343. Revised Edition 2012 (1960) sector between the 1930s to-date, the law has remained passive and regulatory. It has not actively spurred socio-economic development and or provided a voice to small-scale tea farmers against vicious and exploitative players and private entrepreneurs in the tea sector in Kenya. The tea sector's legal and institutional frameworks retained colonial relics and apparent gaps that have disenfranchised and inhibited socio-economic development of the small tea farmers in Kenya. Though neo-liberal programmes and processes opened up the commercial economy in Kenya to the private sector, desired objectives of increase in shareholder value and better earnings to tea farmers are yet to be achieved. Despite tea farmers owning sixty-two small-scale tea factories across Kenya and income on manufactured tea being rated highly, small-scale tea farmers have been relegated to labourers in their own farms owing to the un-regulated principal-agent relationship that exists within the management structures of the said tea factories. The legal and institutional frameworks in the tea sector are regulatory and have not ascribed clear roles and responsibilities of the shareholders and other tea stakeholders. The tea industry in Kenya is monopolistic and colonial based with large chunks of land still being held by pre-independence multinationals corporations. Tea farmers are yet to benefit from the neo-liberalism programmes that are associated with divestiture. Using the doctrinal research methods to analyze data sourced from the internet, sessional papers, and the law, this project establishes gaps in the tea sector's legal and institutional frameworks that have continued to cause tensions and underdevelopment amongst the small-scale tea farmers. This project intends to prove the hypothesis that indeed there exist gaps in the tea sector's legal and institutional framework which ought to be addressed through legal reforms.