Malawi tea body has commended Rwanda’s agriculture model, saying it offers key lessons on how to improve the sector back home.

Sangwani Hara, the chairman of Malawi Tea Association who led a five-member delegation on a two-day tour in the country, said the team learnt a lot from the development of Rwanda’s tea industry over the years. 

"Rwanda has a good agriculture performance model that we can learn from to improve our tea sector,” Hara noted.  Malawi is the second-largest tea producer in Africa after Kenya. Amb George William Kayonga, the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) chief executive officer, said the visit will enable the Malawians to benefit from experiences of tea farmer co-operatives, ownership and management of tea factories, policy-making and regulations, gender equality and farmer empowerment. The visit is also an opportunity for Rwanda to learn from the Malawians on tea industry development. He said NAEB will use the interaction and knowledge gained from the visitors to find ways to advance the local tea sector’s performance. 

"Therefore, building a strong relationship with the continent’s largest tea producers will benefit Rwandan farmers,” he said. Rwanda earned Rwf34.14 million from tea exports in the first half of 2016 compared to Rwf38.33 million in the same period in 2015.