Millers look the other way to make profits

Coffee millers have been blamed for fuelling a new wave of theft of the commodity by buying the produce without establishing its source.

Stakeholders interviewed by The Standard said this has fanned recent instances of coffee theft, as even people who are not farmers have been allowed to sell the produce.

However, some of the cartels thrive on farmers who uprooted their coffee trees long ago. They pose as coffee farmers and sell stolen coffee to factories that do not ask too many questions.

A KPCU Director Fred Kirubi said when the coffee market was liberalised Coffee Board of Kenya (CBK) should have cancelled old membership numbers, which are now being used illegally.

Kirubi, who is a director representing estate farmers in Murang’a and Machakos, said the matter should be addressed before it gets out of hand. The CBK, Kirubi said, should act before the situation worsens. The KPCU director said farmers were seeking police escorts, which has led to an increase in costs of transport.

Mr Silvester Kendi, the general manager of Tropical Farm Management, which manages Muthaite Estate among other farms, blamed the smuggling cartels on liberalisation.

Coffee Dealers

"I am not saying liberalisation was bad, but with it, coffee dealers do not necessarily have to go through KPCU. That means one can buy coffee from any farmer and sell it to a mill of their choice," he said. He said demand was high and supply low, as many farmers uprooted their coffee following low prices in the past two decades.

According to him, a kilogramme of milled coffee fetched between three and four dollars at the end of the last coffee auction. A manager at a farm in Juja said many employees collude with the cartels. "I have on several occasions been approached by traders requesting that I allow coffee be removed from our stores for a token fee. I have never let them in," he told The Standard.

Reporting by Wairimu Kamande, Boniface Gikandi and Francis Ngige