Tea plantation workers in Kenya are breaking the robots that do their job to keep their jobs. The damage already caused is estimated at $1.2 million, all the disabled machines belong to the company that produces Lipton tea.
Kenyan tea plantation workers destroy robotic tea picking systems, writes Semafor. Therefore, tea pickers protest the rapid automation of production, for which they lose their jobs.
The Kenya Tea Growers Association estimated the damage already caused at $1.2 million, in total nine robotic machines, belonging to the company that produces Lipton tea, were destroyed.
A tea harvesting machine can replace the work of 100 workers. At the same time, the production cost of a kilogram of tea is reduced from $0.11 to $0.03, the Kenyan government task force calculated.
Kenya is the third largest tea exporter in the world after China and Sri Lanka.
Unemployment in Kenya is at the highest level in East Africa. The World Bank attributes this to the development of factory automation. According to Q4 2022 results, one in seven healthy Kenyans was unemployed.
A government task force has recommended that local businesses limit the importation of automated tea picking machines into the country and establish a 60:40 ratio of mechanized to manual tea picking.
Author:
Kirill Bilyk
Source: RB
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