Women stir up brighter future for coffee

Ms Jane Njambi is a small-scale coffee farmer in Nyeri County. She is part of a group of 159 women who are gradually expanding their dominance in the coffee value chain, thanks to an empowerment programme championed by two coffee organisations.

Coffee Management Services (CMS), an agribusiness firm offering coffee farm management services in East Africa, has partnered with Nestlé, the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company, to promote the latest agricultural practices and technologies in coffee-growing areas in Kenya.

Increase production

Under the partnership, 159 “female promoter farmers” drawn from nine farmers’ co-operative societies (FCSs) in central and eastern regions have so far received training as part of efforts to increase coffee production. The initiative is also expected to increase women’s participation in the industry from the current 5 per cent.

“When compared to tea, the truth is that the coffee industry has been lagging behind as far as female participation is concerned, which could be a contributing reason behind the current challenges in productivity,” said Ms Catherine Ng’ang’a, the project manager for the Women in Coffee programme at CMS.

“This is because the people who attend meetings and trainings are not necessarily the ones implementing the lessons learned. This results in a big gap between training and implementation, affecting productivity.”

Empowerment programme

Before enrolling in the empowerment programme, in the 2012/13 coffee production year, Ms Njambi, who is from the Mutheka FCS in Nyeri County, produced less than 2,500 kilogrammes of coffee cherry.

After the programme, in 2013/14, her production increased by 260 per cent to 9,000 kilogrammes.

This yield earned her Sh495,900, an average price of Sh55.10 per kilogramme. Her proceeds increased by 726.5 per cent from the Sh60,000 she earned the previous crop year.

“I have 450 trees of coffee. Each of them produces an average of 13 kilos of cherry against the national average of 2.5 kilos,” said Njambi.

The programme, in addition to offering training on good agricultural practices, tackles governance issues and income management.

Coffee calendar

“We have been trained to observe the coffee calendar on spraying, pruning and general crop husbandry. We are enjoying bright moments in the coffee industry courtesy of the programme,” said Njambi.

She also credited her high production to a soil analysis carried out by agronomists from CMS, which enabled her know what nutrients her crop required.

The empowerment programme also helps farmers establish nurseries for sustainability of their crop.

“In addition to promoting women’s participation in the coffee sector, we have been successful in training farmers on establishing coffee nurseries with high-yielding varieties and disease-resistant crops, as well as providing them with seedlings at subsidised rates,” said Ms Svetlana Obruchkova, Nestlé Kenya’s managing director.

She added that the partnership with CMS, which is part of the global Nescafé Plan Initiative, also encourages more women to take up leadership positions in co-operatives.

“Our programme aims to directly train more than 1,000 women on better agricultural practices, while at the same time developing their confidence and business skills, which they can pass on to other members of their co-operatives.”

The Nescafé Plan Initiative aims to improve the quality and quantity of coffee production.

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