Kenya eyes Chinese tea market
Nairobi - Kenya on Tuesday said that it is currently formulating strategies in order to export tea into the Chinese market.
The Interim Head of the Tea Directorate Elizabeth Kimenyi told Xinhua in Nairobi that the Chinese market will help to diverse tea export markets.
"We want to reduce our reliance on traditional markets such as Egypt, Britain and Pakistan in order to reduce price fluctuations," Kimenyi said on the sidelines of the Africa Coffee Outlook Conference which kicked off in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Kenyan dairy farm project set up by Italian investors
Italian firm Sace-Servizi Internazionali together with nine specialists in the beef and dairy value chain, is investing US$20mn in a model dairy farm at MoiUniversity in Eldoret, Kenya
The proposed model farm will manufacture yoghurt, butter and powdered milk, as well as have a feed chamber.
Upon completion later this year, the farm aims to produce more than 25,000 litres of milk daily from 1,000 high-yielding pedigree cows and generate around €3mn annually in revenues.
Already, MoiUniversity, located in the agricultural-rich North Rift region, has donated 300 acres of land for the project. The Italians are expected to transfer their expertise in dairy farming to the project.
Kenya 'Telephone Farmers' Harvesting On Hi-Tech
Farmers in Kenya "are making use of a growing number of technologies and platforms to help them choose and manage their crops more efficiently," according to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report.
The report says a growing number of 'telephone farmers', who live in the city are making use of mobile devices to monitor effectively what goes on in their farms while working in the cities.
"Tech giant IBM's EZ-Farm project - currently being trialed in Kenya - is exploring how sophisticated data analytics can help farmers keep in touch with what is really happening on their out-of-town smallholdings," the report said.
Rwanda: Canadian Firm Acquires Licence, to Grow Stevia Plant on 1,000 Hectares
The Ministry of Trade and Industry (Minicom) has signed an agreement with SteviaLife, a Canadian firm, that will see the latter promote the production and export of Stevia plant. Stevia is a sweetener that comes from a plant and has no calories. During the signing ceremony, yesterday, officials said at least 25,000 people will be employed on every 100 hectares of Stevia plantation. The MoU aims at promoting the new crop in the country and add value to it mainly to boost the country's export base.
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