Direct coffee sales earn Mathira top dollars

Farmers in Ndaro-ini coffee factory in Mathira, Nyeri, have been paid one dollar, or Sh100 per kilo of coffee, the highest so far in payment this season, compared to the Sh75 per kilo announced by the next highest payer.

The high pay is being attributed to the direct sale of their coffee to a Netherlands based company known as Trabocca BV.

All the coffee factories that have announced their rates for the season, have posted lower prices than last season, blamed on low international prices and low quality coffee beans from most farmers.

“We started negotiations last year in April with a company called Trabocca from the Netherlands. We only managed to seal the deal late last year and by February we had paid our farmers,” the chairman, Chairman Joseph Mukuha told Mt Kenya Star.

However, Mukuha says it was not easy for them to achieve as they had to leave their cooperative society.

“We were part of Gikanda Coffee Farmers’ Co-operative Society together with two other factories. Trabocca approached the society with an offer of buying our coffee as it is known the world over for its quality. There was a lot of opposition because of various interests,” says Mukuha.

Due to the sensitivity of the matter and previous experiences, farmers told the company to pay for the coffee before carrying it away from their stores. “Trabocca agreed to the condition and they offered to buy a kilo for Sh100 as the minimum price. If the market improved, they promised to increase the price but for now, we have an agreement of Sh100 per kilo as the minimum they will pay for our coffee for the next three years. After that we will discuss on renewing the contract.”

The issue of factory expenses during pulping was also discussed and the company agreed to pay an extra Sh21 per kilo for this.

The Chairman says they agreed to be doing an audit of the funds every year to decide where to allocate them in case they had some balances after meeting the factory maintenance costs.

Regarding break-up from Gikanda Cooperative Society, Mukuha said the co-operative department refused to register them as a co-operative on their own and insisted they remain a part of Gikanda but they were determined to break ranks.

“There was no way we could have remained together and we were not selling our coffee to the same buyer. We couldn’t allow anything to come between us and the deal and after a lot of opposition and sabotage, we managed to register Ndaroini Coffee Growers as a Public Limited Company. Currently, we are 900 farmers. We don’t regret as our farmers are assured of a market for their next season’s produce. They can also budget effectively as they are assured of Sh100 per kilo as a minimum. We are now working on increasing production and maintain quality. All our workers are trained at Coffee Research Institute and we buy inputs for farmers in bulk at a reasonable price. We are also establishing a spraying unit who will be spraying the coffee for farmers to ensure uniformity and quality of our produce,” says Mukuha.

The highest paid farmer in the factory had 18,000 kgs of coffee and took home Sh1.8 million.