Mauritius Launches Tea Replanting Drive on 46 Abandoned Arpents
The Small Farmers Welfare Fund is funding replantation across four regions, targeting a 50% rise in tea output by 2029 with a 50% cost subsidy.
Mauritius is relaunching its tea sector with a targeted replantation programme covering 46.45 arpents of land that had been abandoned by 50 smallholder farmers across four regions of the island.
The initiative is being led by the Small Farmers Welfare Fund, a government body that supports small-scale agricultural producers in Mauritius. The programme was announced as part of the national Budget 2026-2027 and is designed to reverse a gradual decline in domestic tea cultivation.
Under the scheme, the government will cover 50 percent of the costs involved in replanting tea on the abandoned plots. The remaining costs are expected to be borne by the participating farmers, who will benefit from technical support alongside the financial subsidy.
The target set by the programme is ambitious: a 50 percent increase in tea production by 2029. Mauritius has a long history of tea growing, particularly in the cooler highland areas of the island, and local tea, often sold under labels tied to estates in regions such as Bois Cheri in the south, is both consumed domestically and exported as a premium product.
The abandonment of agricultural land by small planters is a broader challenge facing Mauritian farming. Factors including ageing farmer populations, low profitability, and labour shortages have led many small cultivators to let plots lie fallow. The replantation programme is an attempt to bring some of that idle land back into productive use.
The four regions targeted by the scheme have not been individually named in the initial announcement, but the focus on smallholder plots suggests highland and semi-rural areas where tea cultivation has traditionally been practised.
What this means: For the 50 farmers joining the programme, the subsidy could significantly reduce the financial risk of returning to cultivation. For the broader Mauritian economy, reviving domestic tea production supports food sector diversification and could reduce import dependency while preserving a culturally significant agricultural tradition. The 2029 production target gives a clear benchmark against which the programme's success can be measured, and the Budget allocation signals that tea is now a policy priority rather than a declining afterthought.
Agricultural observers may note that the programme's scale, 46.45 arpents across 50 farmers, reflects the fragmented, small-plot nature of Mauritian farming outside the sugar industry. Whether the subsidy is sufficient to make replanting economically attractive over the long term will depend on market prices for tea and the availability of labour and equipment in rural communities.
Source: Le Defi Media
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Small Farmers Welfare Fund in Mauritius?β
The Small Farmers Welfare Fund is a Mauritian government body established to provide financial and technical support to small-scale agricultural producers across the island. It administers subsidy schemes, training and welfare programmes for planters who do not have the resources of large agro-industrial operators.
How much land has been abandoned by tea farmers in Mauritius?β
According to the latest programme announcement, 46.45 arpents of tea land have been abandoned by 50 planters across four regions of Mauritius. An arpent is a traditional unit of land measurement still commonly used in Mauritius, roughly equivalent to about 0.42 hectares.
What is the goal of Mauritius's tea replantation programme?β
The programme, funded through the Budget 2026-2027 and run by the Small Farmers Welfare Fund, aims to increase domestic tea production by 50 percent by 2029. It offers farmers a subsidy covering 50 percent of replanting costs to encourage them to return idle land to cultivation.
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