Challenges and opportunities faced by tea plantation workers in Gasiza Parish, Nyakabande Sub-County, Kisoro District

Abstract

The objective of the study was to assess the challenges and opportunities faced by tea plantation workers in Gasiza Parish, Nyakabande Subcounty. Specifically, I investigated whether gender, age, education level, category of worker, quantity of tea seedlings planted, quantity of tea leaves harvested, marital status, income earned from other sources had a significant relationship with income earned from tea and with monthly expenditure. Primary data was used in this study and it was collected using KOBO collect questionnaires from 100 respondents who were workers within Gasiza tea planation in Kisoro district. The analysis was done using frequency distribution, Pearson Chi square test and multiple regression model. From the results, males dominated with 62.0%, most of the workers are in the age group of 31-45 that is (38.0%). All the tea plantation workers opined that they don’t get to access to facilities such as Land for cultivation and Education to their children while Drinking water, medical care and Communication facilities were accessed on different scale of sufficiency. From bivariate analysis, findings revealed that income earned from tea has a significant relationship with monthly expenditure of the respondents since its (P=0.007<p=0.05). In multivariate analysis, findings revealed that tea plantation workers who completed university had a statistical significancy with the amount earned from tea because (p=0.040) <(p=0.05) and this implies that completing university level had influence on income earned from tea. Results reveal a need for the government to provide more land to the tea plantation and the tea plantation workers to be provided with land side farming. The wages of tea plantation workers should be increased at a favorable amount. Provision of more trainings to the tea plantation workers on better ways of growing, production, harvesting, storage and marketing should also be improvised.