Farm invasions and torched machines: Tea politics descends into ugliness in South Rift
A tea plucking machine at Eketera tea estate in Kericho on June 30, 2022. Pressure is mounting on multinationals in the South Rift region to discard the use of such machines in favour of manual plucking.
Photo credit: Vitalis Kimutai | Nation Media Group
Police have beefed up security around the operations of multinational tea companies in the South Rift region following attacks by groups of youth. On Thursday, 35 youths had engaged police in running battles in tea estates owned by Ekaterra Plc, formerly Unilever Tea, in Konoin constituency, Bomet County.
It came hot on the heels of the torching of 10 tea plucking machines at the Tagabi estate owned by the same company in Belgut constituency two weeks ago.
