Reading the Tea Leaves in Zimbabwe: Troubled Times

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000277 SIPDIS AF/S FOR S.HILL ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU ADDIS ABABA FOR ACSS NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR B.PITTMAN TREASURY FOR J.RALYEA AND T.RAND STATE PASS TO USAID FOR L.DOBBINS AND E.LOKEN COMMERCE FOR BECKY ERKUL SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ECON ETRD PGOV ASEC ZI SUBJECT: Reading the Tea Leaves in Zimbabwe: Troubled Times -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (U) Production is down at Zimbabwe's two largest tea estates in the face of a severe labor shortage and lack of foreign exchange for inputs. In addition, the move to mechanization has reduced tea leaf quality and the amount of exportable product. Both estates have sought deals to improve their standing with government and taken over the provision of many government services in their communities, but management recognizes that the present situation is commercially unsustainable beyond the short term. END SUMMARY. -------------- Labor Shortages Cripple Tea Industry -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Zimbabwe's commercial tea estates used to rely on hand-picking to provide high quality tea leaves for international black tea blends such as Lipton's and Five Roses. However, despite 80 percent unemployment in the formal sector, Zimbabwe's two largest tea estates located along the Mozambique border in the Eastern Highlands of Manicaland province, have struggled to keep employees. Tanganda Tea Company Ltd, the largest tea estate in Zimbabwe with 9400 hectares spread across five farms in Chipinge, has lost about a third of its permanent staff while Eastern Highlands Plantation Ltd (EHPL),a foreign-owned, 6400-hectare estate in the Honde Valley, has been harder hit with its total employment down by 57 percent. Both tea estates have lost nearly 90 percent of their tea pickers. Hyperinflation has severely reduced the purchasing power of tea pickers' wages although the tea estates strive to maintain a U.S. dollar wage of 59 cents per day through wage hikes and benefits such as commodity packs of the staple maize meal, sugar and other basics, plus housing, electricity, and transport. ¶3. (SBU) Especially since the price control crackdown and subsequent decline in production of food and consumer goods, informal trading now provides a better income for the tea pickers than working on a tea estate. Workers cross the border into Mozambique, buy goods and return to Zimbabwe to either use the goods or sell them on the informal market. Much of the skilled labor has migrated to South Africa. The Managing Director of EHPL, Nick Fawcett, explained that even if wages were raised, hyperinflation would force the employees to leave the estate to spend their wages as quickly as possible. Fawcett doubted that the tea pickers would ever return to work on the estate, in part because internationally tea was a low margin, high volume business that required wages of USD1/day or less to be profitable; wages were unlikely to be competitive with other sectors of the economy even in a stable economy. Also, Zimbabwe's young, relatively well-educated workforce could get higher paying jobs than hand-picking tea and had little desire to do farm labor. -------------- Mechanization: A Costly Savior -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The labor shortages have forced Tanganda and EHPL to mechanize their harvest by sending workers out with shears and to use mechanical cutters pulled by tractors or by hand, resulting in lower quality green leaves and higher costs. Tanganda once produced 80 percent high-quality leaves for export and 20 percent of lesser quality (and lower price) for sale in Zimbabwe. Now, because mechanized harvesters cut the leaves and gather too many stems, Tanganda only produces 60 percent export quality tea. EHPL has seen its top quality green leaf production fall from 65 percent to 35 percent. ¶5. (SBU) Despite mechanization, both companies have stopped harvesting a significant portion of their tea fields. EHPL is fully HARARE 00000277 002 OF 003 mechanized, but cannot use the current harvesters available on all of its fields which stretch across the steep slopes of the Honde Valley. Consequently, EHPL has mothballed 50 percent of its fields. Turnover has fallen from USD4.5 million per year in 2000 to USD2.6 million per year in 2007. Tanganda has also mothballed fields and seen its production drop from 10,000 tons per year to 8,500 tons per year now despite the company's plans to expand production to 15,000 tons per year. -------------- Economic Downturn Drives Costs Up -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Zimbabwe's economic decline has also hurt the tea estates' viability. Electricity shortages forced Tanganda to buy four generators for its production facility at a cost of USD60, 000 to UD$70,000. Additionally, the generators cost five times more to run than electricity from the national power grid. A shortage of packaging material has also reduced domestic sales and left piles of tea lying around the factory floor. Tanganda once procured 80 percent of its inputs locally, but now imports parts and fertilizer among other items. Tanganda also must remit 35 percent of its foreign exchange earnings at the below-market, official exchange rate to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, though the company hopes that its recent consolidation into the new majority black-owned Kingdom Meikles Ltd. conglomerate may result in a more favorable foreign exchange arrangement. The Managing Director of Tanganda, Mike Browne, estimated the estate could only survive another year in the current economic environment. ¶7. (SBU) EHPL has been hampered by government efforts to take over the farm. War veterans settled on nearly 20 percent of the estate in 2002, and two-thirds of EHPL was listed for acquisition in 2004. EHPL stopped farming in 2005 in anticipation of the acquisition, but restarted in 2006 when no more land was seized. Nonetheless, the threat of takeover caused severe cash flow constraints as banks became unwilling to lend. In addition, like Tanganda, the company is unable to access much of its foreign exchange earnings. In response EHPL had developed a relationship with the local ZANU-PF Member of Parliament and Energy Minister Mike Nyambuya, who was also a retired army general and former governor of Manicaland, in the hope that he could prevent the farm from being acquired. EHPL planned to address its electricity needs by building a hydroelectric power station on the estate. Nyambuya sought to take credit for the power station and gain political capital; thus, he assisted EHPL in moving war vets who were occupying land above the proposed hydroelectric plant to another area of the estate. (NOTE: Minister Nyambuya lost his parliamentary seat in last week's harmonized elections. END NOTE.) ¶8. (SBU) ZANU-PF has ceded many government functions to the tea estates as the government's ability to provide basic services has eroded. EHPL maintains the power station with its own engineer, provides transportation to the police and road maintenance crews, brings the mail in from Mutare on its trucks to the post office because no fuel is available for these functions, and has replaced the batteries in the regional cellular phone tower to provide communications. Tanganda is also known to run one of the best primary schools in the region. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Ironically in its attempt to eliminate the influence of commercial farmers in Zimbabwe and retain power, the government has increased the importance of the tea estates in the community. Though economic stabilization and predictable government policies would be enormously helpful, the business has fundamentally changed as the international price of tea has steadily fallen and HARARE 00000277 003 OF 003 mechanization has reduced the quality of Zimbabwean tea. The large-scale commercial tea industry in Zimbabwe is likely to be less profitable than in the past regardless of when things come right. END COMMENT. MCGEE