Coffee farmers losing cash to grading system cartels
By Evans Nyakundi, Robert Ochoro and Reuben Mwambingu
Farmers are losing millions through dubious grading and trading by coffee millers in the country, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary (CS) Peter Munya has warned.
Speaking during a visit to farmers in Kisii and Nyamira on Friday, the CS said coffee millers have been exaggerating milling losses, to steal from farmers.
Munya estimated that farmers have been losing up to 70 per cent of their earnings to the cartels at cooperative societies, and the Kenya Planters Cooperative Unions (KPCU) - an organ entrusted with grading and trading of coffee berries.
Addressing tea and coffee farmers in Nyamira and Kisii Counties on Friday, Munya said KPCU officials were giving low grades to farmers’ coffee before selling the produce at higher grades.
“We discovered at Meru and Dandora KPCU, milling losses were pegged at around 24, but when we got on it, we discovered that the loss has declined to 14, meaning that with better machines, such losses could even go down to even five,” Munya said.
Milling Loses
An audit done in Meru revealed that 76 per cent of the coffee found in KPCU stores were falsely labeled as grade C, but upon re-examination, much of the produce was grade A, the highest grade.
If the falsified grades could be translated into cash, it is estimated that farmers lose an average of Sh40 per kilogram of the mislabeled produce.
The highest grade of coffee (A) fetches between Sh70 and Sh100 while grade C fetches up to a low of Sh20 per kilo.
Munya said farmers also incur losses due to falsified milling losses, which according to investigation by Government varied between 10 and 20 per cent.
The CS assured farmers that apart from the Coffee Cherry Fund that was launched recently by President Uhuru Kenyatta, a Bill to reform the coffee sub-sector will weed out cartels who are exploiting farm.
Auditing
Speaking in Kisii County at a sensitisation forum on proposed reforms in the tea sector at Agricultural Training Centre (ATC), Munya said a Tea Stabilisation Fund Bill was underway in Parliament, noting that once passed, it will aid farmers buy inputs to boost tea production and earnings.
The CS said auditing of the KTDA pool fund was among a raft of measures the State is investigating, coupled with the alleged mysterious 1,000 containers of Kenyan tea discovered in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan and that was being traded in a clandestine manner.
He said a cartel of brokers who were trading tea in foreign markets has been busted, bringing into question the transparency in the trading of the produce.
Munya also said the Government intends to institute a Tea Board and Tea Farmers Council to oversee growers woes.
However, local factory directors downplayed the minister’s words saying the Government was unrealistic with its dealing in the proposed reforms.
“The minister is inciting Kenyan tea farmers against KTDA and when the Government talks of reforms, it should be realistic about the issues affecting the industry,” said David Kireki, a director from Kebirigo.
Speaking to People Daily in Mombasa, officials of East Africa Tea Trade Association (EATTA) and Chai Trading company- a subsidiary of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) – said the government’s move to push for tea regulations is ill-advised and could kill the tea industry.
Chai Trading Company Managing Director Charles Mbui said the regulations have sparked unnecessary pressure from tea farmers a situation he reckoned now threatens to crush structures that have withstood the test of time “with a stroke of a pen.”
