December 2008

Officials from the Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) will next week tour establishments in Sri Lanka, which is already reaping premium earnings through the concept known as Geographical Indications. TBK chief executive officer Sicily Kariuki said they would be seeking to borrow from the success of the Sri Lankan GI registered “Cyclone tea” that has over the years given their rival an elbow to competition. The Tea Board of Sri Lanka has the Cyclone trademark registered over 80 countries over the world. “We shall be looking at the structures of the registered Cyclone GI and having the same possibly implemented here to boost earnings,” she told Business Daily. The team will also study another GI registered product from India known as “Darjeeling tea,” which has equally made inroads in leading global markets. Kenya is one of the world’s biggest producers of black tea together with India and Sri Lanka. Mrs Kariuki said Kenyan growers were losing up to 70 per cent earnings through bulk commoditised sale through the weekly auction in Mombasa, with much of their produce being taken for blending elsewhere. Everyone is shifting to unique traits for marketing and we also need to shape up ,” she said. Locally, the effects of the glut have been sharply felt at the Mombasa auction where pricing has sharply dipped in the first half of the year amid a production boom that saw output climb 48 per cent over the same period last year. Statistics from TBK showed that some 198 million kilogrammes of tea was produced over the first six months of 2007 compared to 134 million kilogrammes last year. This improved out put was replayed at the auction where package offers also climbed 48 per cent to 158 million kg over the same period last year depressing prices by 17 per cent. Export prices were also affected by the production boom, dropping by 11 per cent over the period. Mrs Kariuki, however, said such mixed performance would greatly be checked through GI based marketing where producers are guaranteed of steadier market outlets and pricing. She said TBK, jointly with the Coffee Board of Kenya (CBK), had also formed a technical committee to deliberate on proposals contained in a draft Geographical Indication Bill 2007 prepared by the Government as part of efforts to ensure the concept is adopted within the shortest time possible. Though within the provisions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Kenya has never had a legal framework to govern adoption of the GI concept. According to trade experts, Geographical Indications identify goods that originate from a particular place or country where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of that product is essentially attributable to its geographical point of origin. The indications may be made in form of a word or symbol. Apart from coffee and tea, the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) that has published the draft GI Bill, says a host of other products such as Kangeta miraa, Meru potato, Kikuyu grass, mangoes from Asembo and Mombasa, bananas from Murang’a and Kisii, the Kenyan kiondo, the Molo lamb and Kisii soapstone have a potential to benefit from extensions of the GIs concept. >by William Odhiambo