State raises concern over low coffee production

NAIROBI: The Government has expressed concern that Kenya might lose its position in the global market owing to sharp decline in coffee production. The country is currently producing about 50,000 metric tonnes compared to 130,000 recorded in 1988/89 coffee year.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei observed yesterday that the industry has lost its leading position of foreign exchange contribution to the economy over the years owing to a myriad of challenges.

Between 1960s and mid-1980s, the industry was the leading foreign exchange earner in Kenya, contributing 40 per cent. However, today it is ranked fourth after tea, tourism and horticulture. “The drop in ranking is attributed to a myriad of challenges including high population prompting subdivision of area under coffee, competition from other sub-sectors such as dairy, horticulture, conversion of coffee land into real estates, leadership wrangles, and general decline of area under coffee, “ said Mr Koskei.

The decline has also been attributed to massive subdivision of coffee co-operative societies into economically unviable  units. For example, Kiambu, Murang’a and Nyeri counties have lost substantial land to the fast-growing real estate while in other counties farmers are uprooting the crop and replacing it with activities like dairy farming and horticulture.

MARK OF ORIGIN

Mr Koskei made the remarks in a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Director of Agriculture Joseph Ngetich during the pre-launch of the application of coffee Kenya mark of origin at a Nairobi hotel. Agriculture Fisheries and Food Authority Interim Director General Alfred Busolo confirmed that the area under coffee has declined from 170,000 hectares to about 110,000 hectares in the last one decade.

“However, even though the area under coffee has reduced, we have lined up a number of strategies to fast-track in order to enhance productivity per coffee bush from the current two kilogrammes to more than 10 kilogrammes with a view to reclaiming our position in the global coffee market,” he said.

Koskei explained that in the 2013/14 coffee year, Kenya produced 824,583 bags (49,475 metric tonnes of clean coffee accounting for 0.6 per cent of the global production of 145.1 million bags).

He added that out of the registered production, local coffee farmers earned Sh19 billion in the 2013/14 crop year.

Globally, the coffee industry is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil, with an estimated value of more than US$ 80 billion annually.

Koskei said the drop in the local industry is from an all-time high production of 2.2 million bags representing 130,000 metric tonnes produced in 1988/89.

In spite of the constraints, he assured that the future of the coffee industry globally remains bright.