Tea estates face backlash over colonial-era injustices

A dispute between a British-owned tea plantation and a local community in western Kenya has come to the boil in what could be a sign of turbulent times ahead for tea producers facing a growing backlash over colonial-era injustices, reports TimesLIVE. On the rolling green hills of the Sitoi estate in Nandi County, more than 100 residents are occupying 140ha of land, picking tea and living in huts made of mud and rusty iron sheets while grazing their cattle. They say the land was gifted to them in 1986 by Eastern Produce Kenya. EPK, which is majority owned by London-listed Camellia Plc, says the gift was for 82ha, not the 222ha the local Kimasas farmers' co-operative claims. The standoff follows several violent incidents at estates in Kenya, the world's fourth-leading tea producer. In January, a farm belonging to Sri Lankan-owned Browns Plantations was attacked. Several people working on land issues said the attacks reflected broader frustration with a failure to remedy colonial land grabs.

‘I have tried hard to use the legal system,’ said Joel Kimutai Bosek, a lawyer who has brought litigation against tea companies and the UK Government on behalf of local communities without success. ‘I think the new or coming generation will be more aggressive.’ During the colonial era from 1895-1963, British authorities seized vast tracts of land, much of which became tea plantations, according to a 2021 UN report. Awareness of historical injustices has grown since 2010, when Kenya established the National Land Commission (NLC) to address the issue, said Samuel Tororei, who was a commissioner until 2019. But Tororei said the commission's effectiveness was undermined by its limited mandate and an ‘unholy marriage' between tea companies and political elites, according to TimesLIVE. Under Kenya's 2010 Constitution, tea companies' previous 999-year leases were reduced to 99 years but activists complain the government has not used its ownership of the land to extract meaningful concessions in land or money for local communities. Kenyan Government spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. The companies say they comply with Kenyan law and accuse some politicians of exploiting historical tensions to undermine their land tenures and advance personal business interests. Other community attempts to reclaim land have yielded little. Legal options are constrained by statutes of limitations and official immunities, the UN report said.