ETEach morning, 62 -year -old Francis and his 56 -year -old wife Teresia walk with a small dirt track from their home with a small dirt track for their farm patch, which is located on a fast standing stretch in the hill Kenya Central Hilands.
Here, they will spend the day to choose two leaves and a bright green tea of a bright green tea from his crop of tea bushes until he is filled with baskets on their back – which then they are ready to be ready to be sold in a sack, before repeating the process, until the sundown.
Francis and Teresiah Kenya have only two of the estimated 600,000 smalls of small farmers that contribute to a crop that supplies half of the drinking tea in the UK. This is a hard, monotonous work that usually Pays much below live wages, One has worked for the best part of three decades.
Recently, extreme weather, Climate by climate crisis, The production volume is hit. Both Drought condition Tereciah states that it dries to their tea bushes and excessive cold: “It has cooled down in recent times, as much as we have ever seen, even snow falls in a few days.” As a result of such weather, tea bushes are growing more gradually than normal, and other crops grown in their vegetable patches have died back.
Under those circumstances, getting out to drop the tea is also taking a toll on the health of the couple. Especially cold leaves both of them with respiratory problems, and issues with their joints. “We can take the drug for joint pain, which helps reduce pain for a time, but it comes back again,” says Terracea.
The decline in tea yield has reduced the couple’s ability to pay for medicine. Last year, they were capable of making 135,000 Kenyan shillings from tea production, and another 130,000 shilling from honey and avocado production, which is equal to about 1,500 pounds. The average salary across Kenya is almost double. Given that the couple have 12 family members – including five children and seven grandchildren – which are equal to only 35p per person per day from the farm.
Across the entire Gatanguru tea factory – which is 8,000 – Sadasya -Majboot Tea Kisan Cooperative, which is concerned with Francis and Teresia – due to extreme weather, 24 million tonnes of tea fell from tea to 2024/5 to 2024/5 to tea. The factory supplies tea to Major UK tea brands according to its list of suppliers.
“This climate problem is really prominent for us. I believe that if things are going on, they will threaten the great existence of tea cultivation in this field,” Nancy told earlier Independent,
Kenya’s healthcare ‘initial problems’
The struggle to end is nothing new to Francis and Teresia. “We can bear enough food, but many times we have to take a loan to pay for education,” says Teresia. “Three years ago, we had to sell our cow, which meant that we could not consume milk, and reduced our income even further.”
However, especially acute financial pressures felt by many farmers have not been helped by recent reforms in Kenya’s National Health Incomorious Scheme, experts have stated that Independent
In 2023, the scheme has “a lot of early problems”, says a Community Health Officer in Kenya’s Highlands who spoke Independent On the condition of oblivion. Those “early problems” include “vague information” for community members around the referral, as well as medical supply chain problems. “This is a task in progress”, says the Health Services Officer.
Many tea farmers interviewed Independent Said that their local dispensary often stops, or low on drugs, resulting in treating them.
“Nowadays when we go to dispensary, we are told that they do not have medicines, or we need cash to pay for the treatment, which we need,” Luke Wahom, a tea farmer in the Irian tea factory says that neighboring Gatunguru.
“Most of the time when I go to dispensary, I am told that there is no medicine, even if we are registered with Shif. [the national health insurance scheme] ,
Kenya’s Health Ministry has been contacted to comment on these claims.
For Francis, health concerns have reached in such a way that the funding of healthcare is now the top priority for him. “If I get more money, the priority will have to buy a medical cover to ensure that we are insured,” they say. “The next priority is to build a big house.”
Tea has been set against the backdrop of aid cuts to the health challenges felt by the farmers – especially from Donald Trump in the US – who destroyed Kenya’s national health system, such as disrupts essential services. Prevention of malaria And HIV treatmentAnd leading to lack of drug in some areas.
Before closing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), some 41,500 health workers – or about 18 percent of the total health care workforce in Kenya – were paid by USAID. Between 2020 and 2025, USAID committed Kenya about $ 2.5 billion (£ 1.85BN) in foreign aid, directed to 80 percent of the total healthcare, according to non-profit, according to non-profit, Doctor for human rights,
Some ways ahead
Kenya has some glimpses of hope for the tea farmers facing health problems, but no one provides a clear route to deal with family healthcare as a bite of climate change.
A tea worker-specific health insurance scheme operated in Gatanguru under the leadership of Nancy has been expanded across the country, for the purpose of filling the differences left by the National Health Scheme. It covers diseases experienced by tea farmers and family members under 18 years of age – but even its champions admire that it fails to overcome the problem of healthcare.
“We introduced the plan because the national system is not working – but it is only voluntary,” Nancy explains. “If you are a farmer who needs that money for food, then it is likely that you will not want to give that money for the plan.”
According to Luke at the Iriani Tea Factory, the sale of tea under the ‘FairTred’ mark can also be an important means of supporting your family’s health. Faretrade sales include an additional ‘premium’ payment in every sales, which tea cooperative is then capable of directing community schemes around education and healthcare.
But this income ability to create a separate income is limited by the fact that very little tea sales are actually for FairTred brands. Despite representing 60 percent of Britain’s global fairtrad tea market, only 10 percent of UK tea sales is actually FairTrade. In the Inene tea factory, in particular, less than a percent of its tea is sold as a fair -to -faretrade, despite the fact that there is a 100 percent standard of tea produced that qualifies for the label.
Luke said, “When the sale of the fairdar was more, we will get some more money, and we can take care of family health,” Luke says, who also said that he had experienced problems with his couples by cold. “We would like to buy buyers more fair.”
For Francis in Gatanguru, his greatest hope is to get a good education for the younger generation of his family so that they can eventually leave the tea industry. He sees that climate problem is only likely to deteriorate, and there are some other clear ways from their economic difficulty.
“I just love [my children] Can do something different, “he says.” Farming is just so difficult. There is a lot of struggle. ,
This article was created as part of independent Global assistance reconsideration Project