Tea growing in Uganda was introduced by the British Government from India in 1900 and commercial cultivation began in the late 1920s, which developed on private sector large scale plantation scale. In 1950s, government setup state-owned tea plantations with processing factories managed by a government agency; Uganda Development Corporation (UDC). In 1966, government established a corporation to support smallholder tea growing. Uganda Tea Growers Corporation (UTGC) was established with an act of parliament to promote smallholder tea growing and construction of tea processing factories to serve these farmers. Following political upheavals between 1966 and 1986, there was a drastic degradation of investments in the tea sub-sector. A number of tea plantations converted to tropical rainforests with many tea processing factories and associated infrastructure ending dilapidated. When the current NRM government took over power in 1986, initial tea industry recovery efforts were invested into rehabilitation of abandoned tea plantations and tea factories. Subsequent industry development embarked on increasing the industry size with promotion of more tea acreage from 21,000 hectares in 2001 to the current 44,000 hectares of tea. This was largely achieved through a strategy of free tea seedlings distribution to smallholder tea farmers.