Estate coffee farmers in Kirinyaga reverting back to societies

Most coffee estate farmers in Kirinyaga County are returning to the coffee cooperative societies they ditched, complaining of exploitation by millers and marketers.

The farmers, some of whom have their own coffee processing factories, claimed the millers were taking advantage of their small numbers to dictate to them when to mill the commodity and when to release it to the marketers.

They further accused the millers of deliberately delaying the milling of their crop until the prices were down.

Led by their chairman, Joseph Mugo Karaba, the growers claimed the millers were unfairly benefiting from their hard work.

Massive exploitation

“We have to enter into a signed agreement by the miller where he or she determines who the marketer is and in the process we have no say once we deliver our crop to him/her, leading to a collusion on the price,” Mr Karaba claimed.

He said since it was the milers who decided when to mill the commodity, farmers were being massively exploited as they did not even have representation at the facility.

“Whenever we raise our concerns, they tell us that our commodity is too little for their machines and we must wait until the optimum volume required is realised,” he said.

This, Karaba added, led to losses since the miller only releases the commodity when demand in the market was low or when it was flooded.

Another farmer, Julius Ndumbi, who used to run his own factory, said the venture was unsustainable due to high overhead costs.

Mr Ndumbi said being a coffee estate farmer subjected you to insecurity as thieves steal the premium commodity.

“A coffee estate farmer is viewed as a rich person and therefore spends most of the income on the high cost of labour, unlike the ordinary one,” Ndumbi said.

He said if the management of the coffee cooperative societies was streamlined then there would be no need to venture into estate farming.

Bernard Kathanga, another prominent coffee farmer, said he reverted to the coffee cooperative society, where farmers share the costs once the commodity was delivered to the factory.

“I have dismantled my coffee factory and this days, like most of my colleagues, deliver our cherry to the common coffee cooperative societies, which if properly managed would be a saviour of the coffee farmer,” he said.

Jadiel Ndegwa, a farmer from Karucho village, said he used to be an estate coffee farmer but after the sector was hit by a myriad of problems he opted out.

The growth rate of estates was accelerated by the introduction of private milers in the late 1980s, ending the monopoly of the Kenya Planters Cooperative Union.

Coffee estates flourished in the county after President Mwai Kibaki assumed office in 2002.