NYERI, Kenya, March 17 – Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has assured coffee farmers that the government is on course to set up a minimum price for their crop for better returns.
Speaking during a live show with Kikuyu FM stations on Friday, Gachagua said that the government is currently addressing marketing of the crop before setting up the minimum price.
“Currently we are addressing marketing of this crop, we are also in contact with farmers from Ethiopia with a view of adopting their pricing model. We realize their model guarantees their farmers huge returns and that is what we want here,” said the DP.
His assurance comes at a time when coffee farmers are demoralized due to poor prices at the auction with many saying that this year payout will be lower than last year where they were paid Sh100 per kilo of raw cherry delivered to factories.
Currently, prices at the auction remain with 50 kilograms of clean coffee going for USD300 as opposed to USD500 in the 2020/21 year.
Gachagua said that at the moment five brokers in the auction determine price of the crop thus denying farmers their rightful pay.
“At the moment we have five brokers who collude to pay farmers what they want. That is why we want to address market issues so that we move away from situation where a few individuals determine what thousands of farmers earn” said Gachagua .
Gachagua said that once market of the Kenyan coffee is found, farmers will never deal with brokers anymore but will sell their crop directly to buyers who desperately need Kenyan specialty coffees.
“I want to tell farmers that brokers will not be at play any role anymore. We will ensure that all our crop is housed in go downs and sold directly from farmers” said Gachagua.
Kenya coffee production has gone down from a high of 80 million metric tonnes in the eighties to all-time low of 20 million metric tonnes currently.
This is mainly due to poor pay of the crop which has seen many farmers neglect and in extreme circumstances uproot the crop.
In January, President William Ruto through executive order number 1 of 2023, moved coffee reforms to DP Gachagua’s office.
