What Government should do to save coffee sub-sector

The coffee sub-sector is a good example of what happens when man is made to serve the law instead of vice versa.

Laws and regulations that govern coffee farming are so many and discriminatory that it is a miracle that farmers in Kenya are doing 50,000 metric tonnes.

Without strong Government support, coffee growing in Kenya will be extinct in the next 10 years. What then can the Government do to save the situation?

Agriculture is a devolved function. I read in the papers that coffee societies in Murang’a paid farmers Sh26 per kilo of cherry last year when those in Nyeri were getting as high as Sh80.

This discrepancy is confirmation that even with the current pathetic operational regime, coffee farming can be pleasantly rewarding. Farmers therefore need an insurance policy that guarantees minimum returns.

Farmers also need a credit scheme that provides inputs like chemicals, fertilisers and advance payments.

The Coffee Research Foundation (CRF), a Government body that specialises in cutting-edge farming techniques, needs to offer constant expert advice to farmers. However, CRF is hidden deep in Ruiru coffee estates and mainly serves large coffee plantations.

For Murang’a farmers to get to where the average Nyeri farmer is, their governor needs to learn firsthand what the Nyeri governor has been doing.

First, management of societies must be transparent to avoid a situation where officials borrow needlessly and hook farmers to paying for wastage and theft.

Secondly, millers must be monitored closely so as to open the milling process to scrutiny and ensure that quality grading is done.

Thirdly, all the above must be implemented so as to push yield per stem from the current 2kg to over 25kg or even more.

Farmers own the giant Kenya Planters Coffee Union (KPCU) mills in Nairobi, Sagana and Meru. But the Government has allowed the mills to be vandalised.

It is now very clear that farmers’ assets must have some form of Government partnership.

In due course, all the alternative mills being put up by farmers all over will eventually suffer the same fate unless this country does something drastic about the poor enforcement of rule of law.

The Treasury knows the issues that have tied the hands of KPCU where hundreds of farmers’ money is either lying idle or has been stolen.

All these issues point to a Government that does not care about its farmers or 25 per cent of GDP, the single largest sector of the economy. It is this Government attitude that must stop.

The result of this neglect is macro-economic instability because shortage of foreign exchange exposes the shilling to yo-yo effects and this causes inflation, poverty and stunted growth. Eventually, this leads to high unemployment and insecurity.

Kenya can also add value to its high quality blend. To do this, hundreds of bonded students should be sent on full university scholarships to study value addition in Brazil, Germany, Italy and the US.

Value addition is complicated and expensive because it means combining market-specific taste with restaurant-friendly products in capsules and other vacuumed containers.

Coffee auction also needs competition like direct sales and commodity exchange markets for better price of milled coffee beans.