MPs express concerns over slow uptake of coffee cherry advance fund

Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Industry and Cooperatives have expressed concerns over slow uptake of coffee cherry advance loans by farmers.

The legislators who visited several coffee factories in Gatanga sub-county said Ksh 2 billion of the fund is lying idle as farmers shy off from sourcing the money to boost production of the cash crop.

The committee members led by Gichugu MP Robert Gichimu Githinji and his Gatanga counterpart Hon Joseph Nduati Ngugi observed that farmers have not been capacitated well on Cherry fund which is given at a small interest of 3 percent pleading with coffee farmers to take the money as they use their previous delivered coffee as the collateral.

Gichimu called on New Kenya Planters Coffee Union (New KPCU) to intensify sensitizing coffee farmers on the importance of Cherry fund which is of big help when it comes to cutting down the harvesting cost.