Coffee farmers smell aromatic returns amid global price surge
A kilo of Kenyan coffee in the global market is going for as high as $7 (Sh751.10), bringing back the glorious days for the country’s farmers.
Sometime in 2019, the global price of a kilo of Kenyan coffee hit Sh189 ($1.75), the lowest in over three years.
During the entire year, farmers did not sell their produce at more than $4 a kilo in the global market, with the negative effects of the decline reverberating across regions that grow the crop in the East African nation.
Many farmers thus received paltry earnings, leading to despondency that saw some uproot the crop and replace it with others that they considered of high value, such as avocados and macadamia.
Joseph Mwangi, a farmer in Murang’a, is among those who uprooted their coffee trees.
“I had coffee on three acres but replaced the bushes on at least one acre with avocados, whose global market is stable,” he said.
Mwangi, as many other farmers, chose to keep some coffee bushes because of the sentimental attachment they have to the crop, which was grown by their forefathers.
The good times started in 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic disruption which hurt international trade, as the year turned out to be one of the best for coffee farmers after they received record earnings.
Coffee delivered
At Thiriku co-operative society in Nyeri, for instance, farmers received $1.12 per kilo of coffee delivered in 2020, the highest in about a decade, the firm’s records show.
At Muguga society, also in Nyeri County, manager Gerald Mwangi said farmers earned an average of 0.93 dollars per kilo.
And this is the case for other coffee societies in the region with the crop bringing cheers to many coffee growing households.
And 2021 seems to be no different as global coffee prices continue to surge. In the first quarter of this year, Kenyan coffee price in the global market stood at between $6 and $7, according to KNBS, pointing to another good year despite the pandemic’s squeeze. –Xinhua
