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I always felt Pfunda had an enchanted, pre-historic atmosphere
in the earlier years when there were no lights from Gisenyi and
Goma but one could see the glow and the chimney of the live
volcano Nyiragongo as dusk set in and the silhouettes of the
volcanoes grew before finally vanishing into the dark night.The
only thing missing were the dinosaurs!
On 6 November, David Graham and his son Tresham reached
Pfunda and the three of us made another tour of the factory and
tea fields the next day. While David quizzed me about my
opinion of the factory and tea fields, my mind was a jumble of
conflicting thoughts: “How will I manage to turn this place
around? I don’t speak French, the staff don’t speak English, the
farmers and workers only speak Kinyarwanda. But, there are
opportunities here. We can’t go wrong; the place is already at
rock bottom and anything we do will only bring it up.” So, I
simply said that Pfunda had tremendous possibilities and could
be made into something good.
On 9 November, at a small ceremony held at the Hotel Des
Mille Colleens, Mr Donald Kaberuga, the Minister for Finance
and Economic Planning, handed over management of Pfunda
Tea Company Ltd to LAB International Ltd which had
acquired 55% shares. In 2008, the company purchased another
35% shares to take its stake to 90% and the remaining 10% was
given to Cooperative Des Theiculteurs De Pfunda, the tea
farmers’ cooperative.
The Grahams left and I and got down to planning the
transformation of the factory and tea fields.The communication
barrier was overcome by hiring a translator who also taught the
staff basic English. Plans were made for Pfunda factory to have
a capacity of 2.5 million kg made tea per annum.This expansion,
started in 2005, was to be done in three phases on site and in
house. On its completion by
August 2015, the factory will
have a capacity of 3.5 million kg
made tea per annum. The
additional 1 million kg will come
from the new tea areas. Thanks
to the confidence that the
Grahams had in Team Pfunda –
A.P.S. Shaw, A.S. Nain and
R.M. D’Rozario – Pfunda, from
a derelict tea factory equipped with just 28 withering troughs,
one line Rotorvane, three cut 30 inch CTC, one dryer giving a
maximum output of 150 kg made tea per hour, is today a factory
equipped with 92 withering troughs, four lines Rotorvane, four
cut 36 inch CTC, two dryers, processing 55,000 kg of green leaf
in sixteen hours.
Unique to Pfunda, the BI tea
area is scattered all over and in
between the small farmers’ tea
fields in plot sizes ranging
from a few hundred bushes to
about 14 Ha. From the outset
it was realised that with just
106.49 Ha of tea, the productivity of the Cooperative had to
improve immensely for the investment in Pfunda to pay off.
A policy was put in place to render free of cost extension services
on tea field management to the Cooperative, make available
interest free loans for purchase of fertilizer and trucks for green
leaf transport, plus other inputs. Having BI tea fields scattered as
they were, was turned into an advantage; they were used as
demonstration plots to teach the small farmers better tea
husbandry techniques. Corrections were made in drainage,
weeding, fertilizer application, pruning style, pruning cycle;
plucking rounds were tailored to the number of days it took for
the leaf to unfold.The result – Pfunda doubled its production in
eight years, from 1,099,625 kg made tea in 2004 to 2,372,178 kg
in 2012. In 2014 Pfunda produced 2,359,654 kg made tea.
To increase production in order to sustain future cost escalations
and maintain profitability, land leases of 306.3784 Ha were
purchased in the area bordering the breathtakingly beautiful
Gishwati National Forest from which on rare occasions one can
hear the chimpanzees call. This land is on hillsides with
extremely steep gradients, on an altitude between 2000 to 2300
metres. Tea has already been planted in 235.5227 Ha, with
another 17 Ha programmed for planting in October 2015.
20 JULY 2015
Team Pfunda
Cooperative Des Theiculteurs De Pfunda
Planting Tea
The Manufacturing Process
Factory Expansion – Phase II