Rural transportation problems: a case study of tea roads in the southern teagrowing region of Meru-Kenya

Abstract

Rural transportation problems in the tea areas emanate from the poor conditions of tea roads which are not maintained to be all weather. Most of these roads are impassable during the rainy seasons and tea farmers incur heavy green leaf losses. The objective of this study is to identify some of the causes of the rural transportation problems and tea losses, describe them and propose the way forward in reduction of the tea farmers losses. A comprehensive literature review is attempted in this study with a purpose of extracting relevant and essential information from available secondary sources. There are three hypothesis formulated and their validity tested using primary and secondary data collected. These are; (a) There is no significant relationship between the closure of buying centers and tea losses. (b) There is no significant relationship between poor road conditions and tea losses. (c) There is no significant relationship between the distance of tea buying centers from the factories and leaf losses. 'co Qualitative and quantitative analysis are used in this study to establish the significance of the relationships and test the hypothesis to enable conclusions to be drawn. The major finding of the case study was that poor road conditions is the main cause of rural transportation problems and tea losses in general. Tea roads should be well maintained to eliminate losses. The study recommends that all key players in the tea industry and precisely KTDA as the small-holder tea Managing Agency has a duty to ensure that the tea roads are well maintained in order to reduce rural transportation problems and tea losses.