Strategic Plan and Policies

The Authority's strategic plan addresses one central problem: a large share of the country's smallholder tea is old. Bushes past their productive life yield less each year, respond poorly to fertilizer and produce leaf that is harder to sell well. Replanting is the answer, and replanting is expensive in the one currency a smallholding household cannot easily spare — time without income.

Everything else in the plan follows from taking that seriously. Raising the replanting rate means making the subsidy sufficient and its payment predictable; it means having planting material of verified cultivar available when the block is ready; it means conservation works on sloping land so the investment is not washed away; and it means an extension service close enough to the smallholder that the young tea is managed properly through the years before it yields.

• Accelerate replanting and infilling. Raise the annual extent replanted under subsidy, shorten the time from application to first instalment, and follow the replanted block through establishment rather than closing the file at planting.
• Secure quality planting material. Register and monitor commercial nurseries so that subsidised planting is done with cultivars of verified identity and quality.
• Strengthen the extension service. Keep every Tea Inspector range staffed and equipped, and give officers the information, mobility and subject support they need to advise credibly.
• Build the society network. Increase the share of smallholders who belong to an active registered society, and increase what a society is capable of doing for its members.
• Improve leaf quality and its assessment. Work with societies, collectors and factories on how leaf is assessed at collection and how that assessment reaches the price paid.
• Modernise the Authority's own information. Keep the registers of holdings, societies and officers accurate and available, and publish the Authority's statistics openly.

The Authority operates under the Tea Small Holdings Development Law No. 35 of 1975 and the regulations made under it, within the policy direction of the Ministry responsible for plantation industries and the national policy framework for the tea industry. Its subsidy schemes, registration requirements and technical recommendations are issued as circulars and guidelines, which are published under Downloads so that a smallholder, a society or an officer can read the rule that applies rather than rely on an account of it.

The Authority is subject to the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016. Requests are made to the Information Officer at Head Office; the procedure is set out under Services. It is also subject to audit by the Auditor General, and its annual reports and audited accounts are tabled in Parliament and published under Downloads.

The action plan translates the strategic priorities into the year's work: targets for extent replanted and newly planted by district, fertilizer issue schedules, the society formation and strengthening programme, the training calendar at Hantana, and the Authority's own capital and administrative programme.

The current action plan and the annual progress report against it are published under Downloads in the Publications and Annual Reports categories. Where a target has a public consequence — an application window opening, a fertilizer issue, a training intake — it also appears as an announcement in the Media Centre, and subscribers to the relevant alert category are notified when it is published.

The strategic plan and action plan documents for the current period are being loaded into the Downloads section. Until they appear there, copies may be requested from the Authority's Head Office.