The Kenyan delegation comprises of senior officials from its rural co-operative bodies- the Tea Savings and Credit Co-operatives (Sacos). These Sacos come under the ambit of the Kenyan Tea Development Authority (KTDA). Chairmen of three Sacos along with a senior general manager were amongst the Kenyan officials who are currently in India.

During their visit to Coonoor, the Kenyan delegation visited a host of tea factories and held discussions with various tea bodies including the state government owned Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation Limited (TANTEA), Indcoserve, the largest industrial tea co-operative in India, the regional chief executive of the Tea Board besides the United Planters Association of Tamil Nadu (Upasi).

In the coming week, the Kenyandelegation will also visit the rural co-opeartives banks in Mumbai, in order to study the rural credit advancement system in India. The aim of the current delegation is mainly to study the tea co-operatives in India and therefore the delegation spent five days at Coonoor where they visited a number of industrial co-operative tea factories of Indcoserve and Tantea.

Giving details about the visit of the Kenyan delegation to Indcos co-operative tea factories, the chairman, Indcoserve, T Rangaiah said that during the visit the Kenyans felt that quality of their tea is far much superior than that in India. However, mechanisation practices are beeter in India and Kenya has to import most of the machines used at the tea factories from India. Secondly, the Kenyans felt that the infrastructure in India is also better as in Kenya they did not have such good roads and linking facilities for their small grower fields.

Discussions also took place between the Kenyan delegates and the Upasi-KVK officials over teamechanisation practices being used in India.

This visit comes close on heels to the visit of the six member Indian Tea Board delegation of small growers to Kenya last month. Ragaiah said that such delegations would help the two countries understand the trade practices being followed in each country. The visit of the Kenyan tea delegation has been organised by the Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management in Pune. A senior official from Vaikunth Mehta, accompanying the Kenyan delegation to Coonoor said that the institute got a request from the Kenyan National Federation of Co-operatives Ltd, to arrange a visit of its co-operative leaders and mangers from Sacos to India.

The Institute had earlier organised a similar visit of delegates from Kenya who wanted to study the dairy co-operatives in the country. The delegates were taken to the National Dairy Development Board at Anand in Gujarat.

Kenya, it may be mentioned here is third largest tea producer in the world after India and Sri Lankaand has as much as three lakh small tea growers as against 40,000 odd small growers in India. Most of the Kenyan tea production is exported and only 5 per cent of its production is consumed locally. As against this, India consumes 70 per cent of its production at home.