Return of the golden coffee dream in Mt Kenya region
Mr Cyrus Karoki Waiganjo, chairman of the Thiriku Coffee Factory in Nyeri County, during the interview on July 19. The factory signed a five-year agreement with a Netherlands multinational that guarantees a price of Sh100 per kilo.
Mr Joshua Wambugu stares down the rotting wooden benches covered with moulds of termite and rusty wire mesh tops.
The rows of dilapidated structures go downhill on the 10-acre farm with overgrown vegetation and a collapsing timber warehouse.
On the far corner at the bottom of the sloppy landscape by a dried stream is an iron sheet roofed structure housing a rusty machine.
When it used to roar to life, this coffee pulping machine would process hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cherry, lining the pockets of farmers who tended to the crop that was popular as the black gold of Mt Kenya. But it’s been years since the sound of the oily gears has been heard here at Rui Ruiru coffee factory in Mathira, Nyeri.
For a factory that once processed over 500,000kgs, production plummeted to a paltry 3,000kgs as disillusioned farmers abandoned the crop because of poor pay and mismanagement of cooperative societies.
But now farmers are beginning to celebrate emerging evidence of the return of the golden coffee dream that reigned in the 1970s.
That was when many wealthy men in Murang’a aged over 60 years recounted that they were educated through coffee proceeds.
Thanks to a raft of sectoral reforms, the glitter of the sector and the sparkle of the shilling are slowly but surely creeping back to the happiness of farmers.
Autonomous units
Rui Ruiru was once part of the 36-factory strong Mathira farmers’ co-operative society that was allied to the giant Nyeri district co-operative union.
However, corruption that robbed farmers triggered the unrest that occasioned a split in 1996, which saw factories breakaway as autonomous units during a period of violent clashes and deaths.
Rui Ruiru then joined forces with four others — Hiriga, Kabiruini, Kiamariga and Kaheraini — to make up Mathira North cooperative society, with a membership of 5,000.
But poor pay of Sh12 per kilo in 2018 again angered farmers and Rui Ruiru broke away from this union leading to violent clashes yet again.
Under new management, and a deal from 2020 to sell coffee to Crowd Farm Africa, the factory has negotiated better prices that have risen progressively to Sh65 per kilo, Sh75 per kilo to Sh85 per kilo this year, of which Sh5 per kilo goes towards running the factory.
The money is wired directly to farmers by the buyer either through M-Pesa or bank transfers and as a result the factory has steadily improved production from 3,000kgs in 2020 to 68,000kgs (2021) and with 75,000 kgs by this month, it is on course to hit the 100,000kg target by February next year. “The revival is on course and farmers who had fled are returning,” says Mr Wambugu, in his late 70s and secretary of the factory, pointing to two newly installed green houses to dry the natural coffee — the black dried berry — as pulping is yet to begin.
Direct marketing
“Things are looking up once again,” remarks a farmer Kame Muriuki, 60, carrying a small sack of the produce. “I had lost faith in coffee farming. I recall once in 1989 when I had expected Sh7.40 per kilo only to be paid Sh2.40 per kilo.”
The management has also struck a deal with new KPCU to advance farmers pay at a rate of Sh20 per kilo at three per cent interest.
But the benefits of direct marketing are more elaborate at Thiriku coffee factory in Tetu where farmers have secured a much sweeter deal of Sh130 per kilo this year.
The factory management led by the chairman, Mr Cyrus Karoki, a retired secondary school head teacher, on November 11, 2020 signed a five-year agreement with a Netherlands multinational, Trabocca B.V. that guarantees a price of Sh100 per kilo out of which Sh10 goes towards factory operations.
But the deal can still be renegotiated to raise the price should the factory attain an ‘overall quality 90’ for the coffee up from the current a cup of 88.
Thiriku has scooped awards in Nyeri County, including the first position for the highest percentage payment per factory in 2020/21 financial year and the highest rate of payment per kilogramme.
With a membership of 2000, the factory has had a good run in production in the past five years. In 2016/17 season, it produced 212,000kgs of cherry, 2017/18 (199,663 kgs), 2018/19 (243,030 kgs), 2019/20 (170, 073 kgs), 2020/21 (304,887 kgs) and this year the projection is 600,000kgs.
“We have fetched good prices because of the bold strategy to eliminate middle men and marketers to directly market our coffee,” Mr Karoki says.
The decision was prompted by an incident that demonstrated how farmers are short-changed by brokers. “In the 2019/20 season, we had quality coffee but our marketer hid it in the stores and only sold when the prices were not good. There was no transparency and we vowed to do things differently.”
Mr Karoki explains they have focused on ensuring their coffee is of best quality worldwide, citing an award three years ago at an international competition in Nicaragua.
Thiriku coffee has been second runners up twice in 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, securing the Dormans quality award, but the achievement is through enforcement of unpopular measures such as barring inter-cropping.
Prompt payments
Another strategy is to ensure prompt payments. “Once we deliver our coffee, dry milled samples are taken and within two weeks, money is released,” Mr Karoki explains.
The challenges faced include high cost of farm inputs like fertiliser with the recommended organic fertiliser going for Sh6,000 per bag and old infrastructure at the factory.
“The cost of maintenance is high, the wooden drying beds need constant repairs and if we could upgrade to metal beds it would help. We also had cases of coffee theft largely collusion by some rogue employees to record ghost kilos but that has since been addressed,” explains the manager Peter Gitonga.
A similar revival is sweeping at Gachatha farmers’ cooperative society.
Ms Jecinta Wanjiku, the secretary-manager, explains this year they project production to hit one million kilos up from 719,845 kilos last year when the price was Sh120 per kilo. In 2020, farmers had 352,854kgs that fetched Sh106 per kilo and in 2019 they harvested 552,732kgs for Sh82 per kg.
“Prices will be higher this year and next year as demand is expected to surpass supply partly because production in Brazil hasn’t been good,” explains Ms Wanjiku.
The factory, however, is relying on a marketer, Coffee Management Services. “The weather is bad this year and the parchment isn’t drying on time and this affects quality. Coffee theft is also a problem,” says Ms Wanjiku.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya terms the price increase as “a phenomenal journey in the past two years of reforms that has seen us battle cartels in the value chain and following it up with the paying counters to avoid stealing the net pay”.
“We are just started... The pay is now being determined by volumes, quality and austerity measures at the factory level. Those who are getting it right are earning Sh100 and above per kilo... The government is cleaning the value chain, leaving the farmer to earn as per efforts imparted,” he says.
According to the region’s Coffee Advisory Officer Elizabeth Njuguna, area under the crop measures 13,325ha, of which 1,138ha being plantations and 12,187ha being under small-scale holdings.
Small-scale holdings currently have a membership of 132,546 farmers, 15,586 of them being women. They all deliver their harvests to 128 factories that employ 698 people, 334 of them being female.
High cost of production
She says earning limitation is hinged on high cost of production, slow uptake of technology and poor husbandry that has seen average productivity per tree settle at 2kg in the small-scale holdings and 8 kilos in the plantations.
Despite the improved earnings, cherry harvests in the county by close of 2020 gained 1.8 million more kilos from the 27.2 million kilos in 2019, but dropped to 20.1 million kilos in 2021.
Murang’a County Agriculture executive Albert Mwaniki said the gains being recorded also include the input of the devolved administration that has for the past eight years introduced rejuvenation programmes. “We have been helping the farmers shift from traditional varieties to exotic breeds like Batian and Ruiru 11. This has seen overheads in fighting diseases go down and productivity go up,” he explains.
Mr Mwaniki says the county has put in place sustainable structures to guarantee coffee farmers continued procurement of exotic coffee seedlings, issuance of subsidised inputs, structuring of pulping facilities, milling, warehousing and creation of seed capital for commencement of paying minimum guaranteed return.
“The climax of it would be commencement of value addition to area coffee so as to access the market with longer shelf-life and higher bargaining power. This would see us help the farmer push up gross earnings from the current Sh1. 6 billion as annual average to more than Sh8 billion optimal potential,” county coffee director Dr Irungu Maina adds.
He explains the sector is grappling with declining soil fertility in the traditional coffee growing areas, conversion of coffee estates into concrete jungles and diversification of farming where farmers are shifting to other crops of value.
A farmer from Kiharu, Mr George Githenji, says coffee theft in the farms and in factories is another challenge.
County Commissioner Karuku Ngumo says: “We have activated our ground security committees to partner with farmers and factory managers to eradicate the thefts.”
