Tanzanian Tea Output Set to Miss Estimate as Drought Cuts Leaf Yields

Tanzania’s tea crop, the fourth- largest in Africa, is set to miss an initial estimate by 8.6 percent in the current 2010-11 season after a drought cut yields, according to the Tea Board of Tanzania.

Production may come to 32,000 metric tons in the year through June, compared with the prior 35,000-ton estimate, Director General Mathias Assenga said yesterday by phone from the commercial center of Dar es Salaam. Output is just 1,500 tons short of the reduced goal, he said. Farmers grew 33,000 tons of the leaves in the prior year, board figures show.

“This season the weather has not been very good, especially since September,” Assenga said. “We cannot achieve 35,000 tons, but 32,000 tons, and we are now remaining with a little volume to achieve this.”

Tanzania exported 28,064 tons of the leaves in the 2009-10 season worth about $57 million, according to the board. Agriculture generates more than 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the CIA World Factbook shows. The board is trying to encourage farmers to introduce the crop to areas bordering Kenya and to use more fertilizers.

“Production by some estates will be a little bit up because of increased care, and volumes from Usambara in the north will improve because of a replanting program,” said Assenga.

Still, output in the coming 2011-12 year may be 35,000 tons, 3 percent lower than the March 11 forecast of 36,000 tons, because of adverse weather, he said. Wider planting and improved field management may raise production from the current period, he said.

The March projection for the next season’s output would be 18 percent lower than the 44,000-ton target in 2008, Assenga said, citing lower-than-anticipated planting and adverse weather. A sowing plan that’s in progress may raise production to 44,000 tons in the 2015-16 year, he said.

Tanzania, East Africa’s second-biggest economy, ranks behind Kenya, Malawi and Uganda in tea production on the continent, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization. The main Tanzanian growing areas are Iringa and Mbeya in the south, Tanga in the northeast and Kagera in the northwest.

Four-fifths of the country’s tea is sold to foreign buyers from the U.K. and Germany to India and the United Arab Emirates. About half of Tanzanian tea exports are channeled through the world’s biggest auction for the leaves in the port city of Mombasa in neighboring Kenya.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

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