A small farmer picks coffee cherries in her field.
There may be some hope of awakening the Kenyan coffee industry as Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Richard Lesiyampe has recently announced plans to open up new areas for coffee production. This is part of efforts by the ministry and other stakeholders to increase coffee output as global prices rise favorably.
Lesiyampe says more than 3,000 hectares have been planted with coffee varieties in non-traditional coffee growing regions in the last three years. He says the increase in acreage under coffee has been achieved out of efforts fast tracked both by the national government and county government among other value chain players.
Meanwhile, Murang’a County is focused on its goal to revive its coffee industry if the Kahawa Bora program launched in October 2015 by Murang’a Governor, Mwangi wa Iria, is anything to go by.
The Kahawa Bora Program aims to engage small holder coffee farmers and improve the quality of the coffee produced, boost quantity and improve the prices payable to the small holder farmers.
In Murang’a County Coffee is still considered a top agricultural activity and although production has been on a steady decline over the last 25 years, recent trends indicate an upturn in production. Reports from the coffee directorate show that cherry production from the county has increased from 14,719,000 kg in 2011/12 to 23.6 million kgs in 2012/13 and 24.133 million kgs in 2013/14. Murang’a boasts about 70,000 coffee farmers who directly impact at least half a million people. At a tree population of 26 million trees production per tree is still low (0.92 kgs per tree against the average 10-15 kgs per tree).
Elsewhere, Non Traditional Coffee growing areas in the Rift Valley and western Kenya are emerging as new coffee regions as the traditional coffee hub, Central Kenya struggles with issues of encroachment of real estate and other economic ventures.
Director Dr. Elijah Gichuru from the Coffee Research Institute (CRI) says that as new coffee frontiers emerge, the concentration is on boosting the yield per tree. New varieties such as Ruiru 11 and Batian are the preferred varieties towards this end.
Does this spell hope for a re-emergence of Coffee as a major foreign exchange earner for Kenya? Perhaps it does but only time will tell.
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