Nov. 25, 2017, 6:00 pm
By DENNIS DIBONDO @ddibondo and GERALD MUTETHIA
Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi, Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) director general Alfred Tabu and commissioner for cooperatives Mary Mungai at a press briefing at Nkubu’s Heritage hotel, November 24, 2017. /DENNIS DIBONDO
The national and Meru governments have partnered to uplift Kenya’s ailing coffee industry at a cost of Sh400 million.
Governor Kiraitu Murungi said on Friday that the county is “lucky” to pilot a project that emulates Ethiopia’s in the areas of production and payments to farmers.
Kiraitu noted that the country, the biggest producer in Africa with about 700,000 tonnes annually compared to Kenya’s 40,000, pays its farmers in time.
Noting this has been Kenya’s main challenge, he said he will work with government officials to help coffee farmers by adopting the Ethiopian coffee industry cash model.
“We want to increase production and simplify the payment system. Farmers in Ethiopia do not wait long to sell coffee. The way we sell bananas is the way we should sell coffee…farmers should be paid immediately.”
He spoke on Friday at Heritage hotel in Nkubu, South Imenti constituency, where he met more than 500 coffee farmers, national government officers and other stakeholders
Read: Coffee prices increase by 24%, volume falls by 6% due to drought – exchange
Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi, Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) director general Alfred Tabu and commissioner for cooperatives Mary Mungai at a press briefing at Nkubu’s Heritage hotel, November 24, 2017. /DENNIS DIBONDO
Kiraitu said they want to pay farmers in Meru within 30 days of the delivery of produce.
“We are working on that and have reached an agreement with Meru North and Meru Central coffee farmers unions’, coffee millers and and government officials,” he said.
“We have formed a committee to implement the project by April,” he added, noting their aim is to improve lives.
The county chief said farmers who deliver coffee in April will be paid within a month. He said they will also expand value addition in the sector in the county.
“When I went to Ethiopia on a research mission (as chair of the senate committee on agriculture), I found Oromia Cooperative Union uses the model and that it is the biggest in Africa,” he said.
“Farmers plant coffee not because they love planting it but because they want money. And now that the national government is fully supporting us, it is upon farmers to adopt this model. Coffee farmers should not rely only on it but also on macadamia to make extra money.”
Kiraitu led the farmers in forming a committee on implementation of the model that will be chaired by Agriculture executive Maingi Mugambi.
The Ethiopian model is to factor in 70 per cent payment on delivery for the last three years. Farmers’ dividends will be paid as bonuses while societies and millers will act as commercial enterprises and take care of capital.
Kiplimo Melly, interim head of the coffee directorate at the Agriculture and Food Authority, said: “Unlike in Kenya where farmers wait until six to eight months, Ethiopians are paid quickly so they are a happy lot.”
Melly noted 70 per cent of Kenya’s coffee is grown by small scale farmers who rely on cooperative societies yet they take time to calculate pay rates.
He said the “good” proposal will be rolled out in 31 other growing counties.
Alfred Tabu, who is Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) director general, read Agriculture Principal Secretary Richard Lesiyampe statement.
Lesiyampe said the government has introduced a number of measures to revive the industry as trade in coffee involves at least $80 billion annually.
The measures include abolishing the four per cent levy, provision of subsidised fertilisers and disease tolerant varieties and implementation of integrated coffee productivity.
These are aimed at increasing production from 46,121 metric tons to 92,000 by 2020.
“The industry has created over 200, 000 permanent jobs and 200,000 temporary jobs,” he noted.
Source – The Star, Kenya.