EDITORIAL: Craft rules to protect local coffee farmers

Since the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in the 1980s that dictated the quantities that producers supplied to the world market, growers in Kenya have never been at peace.

The collapse of the agreement in 1986 turned coffee into a suppliers’ market, with prices moving in response to the vagaries of nature in big Latin American producers such as Brazil.

Kenya, as a small producer and despite riding on the Arabica variety that is used to blend the less potent beans, found itself in no place to dictate prices on the global market.

This was not helped by centralised marketing and milling that left farmers at the mercy of State agencies with dubious credentials.

REFORMS
Deductions by the agencies, apparently to repay debts that were incurred in supplying inputs, left farmers disillusioned.

The area under the crop dwindled as did husbandry, meaning poor-quality coffee was increasingly entering the market and commanding weaker prices.

Pricked as a major foreign exchange earner struggled, the government’s attempts at reform yielded dismal results.

Coffee production has dipped to about a third of the boom days of the mid-eighties. In 2017, Kenya produced 45,000 tonnes compared with 130,000 tonnes at the crop’s peak.

The liberalisation of marketing and milling did not go as planned, as millers competed for fewer beans, leading to coffee theft as processing capacity exceeded the output of growers.

Other reforms like allowing big farmers to set up pulping stations went begging as they introduced a parallel grassroots market that undermined the bargaining power of cooperative societies.

DEBTS
Direct sale, which proponents saw as a solution to the middlemen, did not have the desired results, largely for lack of regulation.

All along, the government has committed billions of shillings in paying off debts to farmers without much success in helping rekindle interest in the crop.

While President Uhuru Kenyatta appears keen on another round of debt waivers, more scrutiny is required of the beneficiaries. Top-down solutions do little to inspire the confidence of growers.

Increasingly, local partnerships with processors are providing a sure market for beans, challenging farmers to produce more of specialty coffee that earns premium prices.

To encourage innovation and return order to the sector, the Coffee (General) Regulations 2018 — the result of collation of stakeholder views by the Coffee Sub-Sector Reform Implementation Committee — should be enacted into law.

That will require the political will to keep off powerful forces that are content with the status quo.