- Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru on Saturday, January 11, held consultative talks between the top leadership of all the 15 coffee cooperatives from the county and an international company that has declared interest in buying the county’s premium coffee.
The press release seen by newszetu.com stated that Kirinyaga coffee farmers would be able to market their coffee directly to the international buyer.
The meeting which was also attended by senior officials from the county’s Department of Trade and Cooperatives and officials from Kirinyaga Investment Development Authority (KIDA) deliberated on a proposed strategy that would ensure that the local farmers’ returns were not only consistent but of economic value and sustainable as well.
“We expect the India-based company that deals in agricultural exports to start buying Kirinyaga coffee as early as next month (February).” governor Waiguru stated.
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru addressing the meeting held in Nairobi on Saturday, January 11, regarding a lucrative deal to export coffee from her county directly to the international market. Under the new deal penned by the governor, the prices are set to be much better than what is currently on offer through the local appointed agencies.
“Farmers would soon be liberated from selling their coffee through agencies that do not offer any guaranteed returns for their coffee and have been performing below the expectation of farmers,” the governor announced.
She added that even though the farmers are bound by the contract signed between them and their appointed agencies, they would still negotiate but sell through the agencies in the current financial year.
She went on to reassure her area residents that in the next financial year, they would be able to sell their coffee directly to the Indian company.
Currently, farmers get a paltry Ksh56 per kilo on average, despite coffee being an expensive commodity the world over.
Governor Waiguru went on to reveal that the company she had just entered into a deal with required 400 tons of coffee every week and therefore would be a reliable market for all their coffee.
A coffee farmer pictured in his farm. Kirinyaga coffee farmers are set to export their produce directly to the international market following a lucrative deal signed by area governor Anne Waiguru on January 11, 2020. The county’s coffee sector is dominated by smallholder farmers numbering to around 88,024 who cultivate the crop on some 19,898 hectares. According to a research report by Food Business Africa in November 2017, a total of 150,000 hectares of arable land in Kenya is under coffee.
The Kirinyaga Governor maintained that she was focused on forging partnerships that would enable the smallholder coffee farmers to negotiate and sell their produce directly to exporters without going through middlemen who have many times been blamed for poor payout to farmers
Kirinyaga County is one of the world’s finest specialty coffee producers with Kabare and Baragwi Cooperatives being ranked 4th and 25th respectively in the 2018 Coffee Review Report.
The County, that is also the second-largest coffee producer in Kenya after Kiambu County, has won various national and global awards for high quality, handpicked, sun-dried coffee.
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru pictured following the meeting which was also attended by senior officials from her county on January 11, 2020.
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