Kenya Coffee Producers Association (KCPA) has petitioned County Governments to stop approvals of change of land user and instead survey and zone areas, which will be reserved for agriculture and commercial purposes.
According to KCPA the move will safeguard coffee and tea farms which are being taken over by real estate in the country.
The association’s national chairman Peter Gikonyo said that to protect, revive and improve agriculture in the country the devolved units must regulate change of land use from farming to commercial purposes and ensure that all arable land which can be used to produce food is not turned into housing estates.
He said liberalization of the coffee sector has contributed highly to the change of user since farmers no longer have to seek government approval to uproot their coffee like before.
The chairman expressed concern over Kenya’s ability to produce 100,000 tonnes of coffee as envisaged in Kenya Vision 2030 due to the continued clearing of coffee bushes in some traditional coffee growing areas.
He was addressing stakeholders of coffee value chain in Nakuru during a meeting organized by Solidaridad Civil Society Group (SCSG).
Mr Gikonyo lamented that traditional coffee growing areas in Central Kenya that used to produce 80 percent of the crop, particularly Kiambu and Thika, have progressively shrunk due to pressure from real estate development while in Eastern region, population pressure has reduced the possibility of increasing acreage under coffee, even though international prices are rising.
The Chairman noted that although there was an increased uptake of coffee farming in the western parts of the country particularly in Bungoma, North Rift and parts of Nyanza the expansion cannot adequately compensate for the cases of uprooting of coffee bushes in the major coffee regions.
Other main coffee-growing areas in the Rift Valley are Nakuru, Kericho, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu and Baringo counties.
Part of the solution, Mr Gikonyo said, was investing more resources towards research and development of coffee seedling varieties that were high yielding, drought tolerant and disease resistant.
“The traditional coffee-growing areas could still raise output by increasing productivity per tree to between 30 kilos to 40 kilos a year. The current average production is a paltry two kilos from every tree due to inferior seedling quality. This has contributed to making coffee farming a very costly venture,” he added.
Mr Gikonyo noted that climate change has affected Kenyan coffee production through unpredictable rainfall patterns and frequent droughts, making crop management and disease control a nightmare.
“Intermittent rainfall causes a terrible bout of the Coffee Berry Disease that can cut output by up to 25 percent. Coffee operates within a very narrow temperature range of 19-25 degrees (Celsius). When you start getting temperatures above that, it affects photosynthesis and in some cases, trees wilt and dry up. We have seen trees drying up in some marginal coffee areas,”he said
He urged research institutions to work on new high-yielding and quality varieties that are drought-resilient and can adapt favorably to climate change.
“Our advice to farmers is to practice better husbandry practices by planting shade trees on farms for sustainable production. In fact, there is an untapped market for coffees grown in micro-climates where farmers minimize the effects of deforestation by inter-planting coffee trees with recommended trees on their farms,” Mr Gikonyo pointed out.
With regard to the Sh3 billion Coffee Cherry Advance Revolving Fund the chairman urged the government to set up an easy and efficient system that will speed up the application of the money for each farmer.
The Coffee Cherry Advance Revolving Fund where borrowers pay a low interest rate of three percent was started two years ago to enable farmers get cash for inputs and harvesting their coffee.
It is managed by the new Kenya Planters Co-operative Union and individual farmers or estate owners can access the money as long as they are members of a registered cooperative and member of new KPCU respectively.
According to New Kenya Planters Co-operative Union majority of farmers have failed to borrow money from the Cherry Advance Revolving Fund since only Sh200 million has so far been distributed to coffee farmers out of the total amount frustrating the government’s effort to revive the ailing sub-sector.
Mr Gikonyo revealed that some cooperatives have been forced to pay youths to fill the application forms on behalf of the farmers, citing complexity and bulkiness.
“The filling of forms is taking too long to complete and nine pages are too much for an average farmer. Some farmers are paying Sh400 for each form to be filled in a process taking over two weeks, to cover all the farmers. They better revise it and find an easy way to remit the funds to the farmers,” Gikonyo said.
He explained that the fund is aimed at helping farmers meet financial obligations after harvesting their crop in order to minimize the time that it takes for growers to get their earnings from their co-operative societies.
Normally farmers harvest and sell the crop through co-operatives and have to wait for more than a month before payment, but the new cash injection has changed this.
The government later recovers the funds after farmers sell the produce by deducting the amount advanced plus a three percent interest rate.
Chairperson to TransNzoia Women in Coffee Association Ms Christine Nasimiyu Baraza indicated the Sh20 advance payment per kilogram of coffee is too little and that the government should increase it to Sh30 per kilogram to ensure that farmers manage to cultivate their farms after the picking season is over.
“They should increase the money to Sh30 while maintaining the same interest so that farmers can do more,” noted Ms Baraza.
She suggested that the best way to build a strong coffee drinking culture locally is to minimize points of price volatility and vulnerability and unfavorable global market conditions as well.
“This effort has borne fruits where Kenya now does value addition and exports about 5 percent of her total national production, which is equivalent to 1,286MT of roasted/ground coffee. According to the Coffee Directorate locally, in 2020/2021 financial year, the amount of Kenyan coffee consumed was 1,655MT green coffee equivalent (GBE), up from 1,577MT in 2019/20. Generally, the domestic coffee consumption of coffee in 2020/21 translates to 4.8 per cent of Kenya’s national total production.”
She stated that the Coffee Houses Census and Quantity of Kenyan Coffee Consumption Survey Report of 2021/22 established that there are 506 coffee houses in the country.
“Even though the coffee consumption per capita in Kenya is 0.036, there is a good progress fanned by the youth in public universities with whom the Coffee Directorate is working closely to establish a number of coffee houses,”she said
Ms Baraza stated that coffee consumption per capita is expected to grow to a single digit in 2030. However, she added Kenyans should not lose the fact that coffee is primarily a source of export revenues and on average accounts for good foreign exchange revenues. Thus, exporting coffee is a necessity rather than an option.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows Kenya exported coffee worth Sh26.1 billion in 2021, up from Sh22.2 billion in 2020.
Kenya is the fifth-largest coffee producer in Africa after Ethiopia, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania, according to the International Coffee Organization.
Over 80 percent of Kenyan coffee is marketed by co-operatives, while the remainder is sold by corporate and individually owned businesses.
Over 90 percent of coffee in Kenya is sold through the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE). The rest is sold through ‘direct sales’ which are negotiated contracts between marketing agents on behalf of producers and exporters.