Kenyan tea farmers set for millions in pay as bonuses hit accounts

Tea farmers across the country have good reason to smile this week, as their annual bonus payments land alongside their September earnings, starting Monday, October 12, 2026.

More than 700,000 small-scale growers under the Kenya Tea Development Agency are set to benefit, with the money already released and ready for withdrawal.

KTDA Holdings chairperson Enos Njeru confirmed that the funds were disbursed last Friday, meaning farmers can start accessing their payouts right away.

"Farmers will access their money from Monday, during normal banking hours," Njeru said.

This year's payout comes with a notable change in how it's communicated. Rather than the KTDA board announcing a blanket bonus rate for all factories, individual tea factories will now declare their own rates, commonly referred to as second payments.

Although factories have not yet disclosed the total payout amount, farmers can anticipate bonus rates ranging from Sh12.50 to Sh50 per kilogramme, depending on the factory they supply.

For context, the 2024/25 financial year saw farmers collectively pocket Sh69.8 billion in bonuses, a drop of roughly Sh20 billion compared to the Sh89.6 billion paid out the year before.

Not every farmer will be smiling the same amount, though, and there's a reason for that.

The 77 tea factories operating under KTDA have now been consolidated into 54 units, including satellite factories that fall under larger mother factories.

Each factory's final payout depends heavily on how much it earned selling tea, both at the Mombasa Tea Auction and through direct sales to local and export buyers.

Several factors shape that earning potential. Rainfall, altitude, soil quality and how well tea is grown in a particular region all influence buyer demand.

On top of that, farming practices like weeding, fertiliser use, plucking technique and pruning directly affect both yield and quality.

Before any bonus gets calculated, factories must also cover their own operating costs, including processing, salaries, fuel, loan repayments, transport, equipment and statutory obligations.

Whatever's left after those deductions determines how much farmers ultimately take home. Currency fluctuations between the Kenyan shilling and the US dollar during the trading period also play a role in shaping final payouts.

This patchwork of variables explains why bonus rates differ so widely from one factory to another, a recurring question among farmers wondering why their neighbours in different regions sometimes earn more.

The process works in stages. Throughout the year, farmers receive a "first payment," a monthly rate paid for green leaf delivered to their factory. This rate already varies by factory, shaped by differences in running costs, market share and sales performance.

To work out the annual bonus, each factory totals its earnings from the Mombasa Tea Auction and direct retail sales for the financial year, then subtracts its full list of expenses, from wages to transport to maintenance. What remains becomes the pool available for farmer payouts.

Factories then factor in the total volume of green leaf received over the year to calculate earnings per kilogramme. Once that figure is set, the monthly payments already made to farmers are subtracted, leaving the final bonus amount, the second payment.

Even so, two farmers supplying the exact same factory won't necessarily walk away with identical bonuses. While the same rate card applies to all growers within a zone, actual payouts depend on how much tea each individual farmer delivered over the year, which in turn depends on plantation size, farming practices and overall productivity.