At 40, Purity Wanjiru Njagi is one of the few women in Githumu village, Murang’a County, who manages her own coffee farm and earns a living from the crop.
For many children aged 15, a career in agriculture is not at the top of their list. But while Ms Wanjiru’s classmates wanted to become doctors, lawyers, pilots and teachers, she wanted to farm.
As fate would have it, when she lost her husband in 1995 shortly after the birth of her second child, Wanjiru had to take over the family coffee farm, with its 200 SL28 coffee trees. Her first harvest was about 600 kilos of coffee beans, which at the time were bought at Sh62 per kilo per year. It was hardly enough to take care of her family.
Further, a major disincentive in farming SL28 coffee trees is that they are susceptible to diseases like coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust. Between the heavy investment in pesticides and production fluctuations due to disease, Wanjiru quickly found herself in a tight financial spot.
Her saving grace came early last year when she was invited to a gender and youth empowerment training session organised by Nestlé through its Creating Shared Value initiative, commonly known as the Nescafé Plan.
The transformation
At the training, she learnt how to manage diseases and improve her coffee yields. She was also assigned an agronomist to visit her farm on a weekly basis to inspect and advise her on best practices.
Equipped with these skills, Wanjiru started the journey to transform her life. By the end of 2015, her coffee earnings had risen considerably, with production increasing from 600 kilos a year to 1,500.
“I made my first five-figure salary from coffee. We used to hear of such salaries from those who were in white collar jobs.”
Wanjiru now plans to plant the Batian variety of coffee, which is resistant to coffee berry diseases and can yield double her current yearly averages. According to the Coffee Research Foundation, Batian does well on the slopes of Mt Kenya and produces coffee berries in about 18 months.
“With the Batian coffee variety, I am confident that the cost of farming will go down drastically due to reduced chemical usage. I also hope to increase coffee yields to over 2,000kgs,” Wanjiru said.
She intends to intercrop her Batian coffee trees with Macadamia fruit trees to provide shade, food and income. Intercropping coffee helps prevent soil erosion, increases carbon assimilation, reduces leaf temperatures, and provides soil nutrients and mulch.
According to research from the Coffee Research Foundation in Ruiru, intercropping coffee with macadamia results in 10 per cent higher yields under rain-fed conditions.
For Wanjiru, with all she has to look forward to from her farm, the future cannot get here soon enough.
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