BAT Kenya has reversed a six-year downward trend in the number of contracted farmers and tobacco output, pointing to the effectiveness of its raft of interventions to secure raw materials for cigarette production.
The latest disclosures show the cigarette maker closed December 2025 with 2,440 contracted farmers, who supplied 5.5 million kilogrammes of tobacco leaf. This marked an improvement from 1,870 farmers in the previous year, when deliveries stood at 4.7 million kilogrammes.
The growth was driven in part by higher payouts, with the firm raising the per-kilogramme price to Sh254.54 from Sh234.04 in 2024. The increase lifted farmers’ earnings to Sh1.4 billion last year, up from Sh1.1 billion in the prior period.
This is the first time in six years that the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm has reversed a decline in contracted farmer numbers and tobacco leaf volumes, which peaked at 5,000 farmers and 8.9 million kilogrammes in 2019. The farmers are concentrated in the counties of Meru, Bungoma, Busia, Migori and Homa Bay.
The rise in the number of farmers and the volumes of supplies made to BAT signals that the raft of initiatives such as offering free tobacco seedlings, fertiliser and personal protective equipment as well as procuring crop insurance for the farmers are beginning to pay off.
The Kenyan operation supplements the produce from the country with that sourced through BAT Group’s global leaf pool, which buys cut rag (processed loose tobacco) from its leaf growing markets worldwide.
BAT has also been encouraging crop diversification by issuing farmers free or subsidised maize and avocado seeds to plant and earn extra income without abandoning tobacco. The firm says all its contracted farmers now plant other crops.
‘We encourage our farmers to grow alternative crops after harvesting tobacco, to enhance food security and soil nutrition. To facilitate this, we provide seeds for subsistence crops, including certified maize seeds at no cost,’ says BAT in the latest annual report.
The latest price per kilogramme is 52.7 percent higher than the Sh166.67 paid in 2021 when the farmers supplied 7.2 million kilogrammes of tobacco leaf. BAT, desperate for the tobacco leaf, has been increasing the prices per kilogramme, crossing Sh200 mark in 2024.
Apart from increasing the pay per kilo, BAT has been trying to counter the fall in the number of tobacco farmers through ‘Thrive’, a global initiative that was rolled out by its parent, BAT Group, in 2016 to make tobacco farming attractive.
BAT Kenya used the programme to introduce hybrid tobacco seed varieties to enhance crop yield and disease resistance. The firm has also introduced low-cost technology, including the use of mechanised ploughing and ridgers, in bid to cut costs and maximise returns for farmers.
The company has a manufacturing plant in Nairobi and a Green Leaf Threshing Plant in Thika, making it a strategic manufacturing hub for the BAT Group’s export markets in East and Southern Africa.
BAT explains that during the growing stage, the tobacco crop is in the soil for six months, after which it is harvested and cured for about three months.
Leaf processing activities include leaf buying, warehousing, and threshing before grading and blending. The final steps include transportation of the processed leaf from the Thika plant to the cigarette manufacturing factory in Nairobi.