We made a deal with the Isunga Community to tour us on a local motorbike boda boda around tea plantations, coffee plantations, and crater lakes for 55 USD (3 motorbikes / half day with a guide). Tea is Uganda’s third biggest foreign exchange earner after coffee and fish. A favorable climate and soil have produced the ideal growing conditions for tea plantations in Uganda to produce some of the world’s best tea. We also learned that most of these tea plantations are owned by companies based in India, and about 90% of their tea production is exported to India.
The local guide explained to us how the fields are set up. Each plant is set and trimmed to be kept at about 2×3 feet in diameter. Workers walk through the tightly planted rows and harvest every week. They used to regrow plants from seeds, but it took up to two years in a nursery bay before the plant could be transplanted. They often use cuttings to start new plants, as those only need to be in a nursery for around one year. After four years, the cuttings can finally be used for harvest.
An average picker can pick around 100 kilograms in a day. The average salary is 70-80 UGX per kilo, giving the worker about 7000-8000 UGX daily, equivalent to 2,20 USD. Local people do not like that kind of job at tea plantations, so nowadays, there are mainly workers from Rwanda.
Parking location – Isunga: 0.493184N 30.333254E (🚻)