Report catalogues how coffee cartels have siphoned Sh28b from Kenyan farmers in 7 years

Farmers affiliated to Gachatha Farmers’ Cooperative Society in Tetu, Nyeri County sorts out dry coffee berries. PHOTO KIBATA KIHU/STANDARD.

NAIROBI: Cartels running the country’s coffee industry have siphoned at least Sh28 billion from farmers in the past seven years in an elaborate price manipulation scam, an insider report has found.

The audit report, The State of the Coffee Industry, seen by Business Beat and authored by a former managing director at a coffee company, indicates that farmers have been losing an average of Sh3 billion a year through a price manipulation syndicate at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE), where a coffee auction is held every Tuesday.