Governor urged to honour vow, ensure fixed coffee payments

Nyeri; Kenya: The Nyeri County Governor Nderitu Gachagua recently announced a new payment structure for coffee farmers.

 Kahiriani and Kiuu’s factory payment rates would be Sh80 and Sh38 respectively in the new order, which is yet to materialise.

When Gachagua announced the new prices, farmers got a reprieve after years of suffering at the hands of commercial millers.

The Governor’s proposal to have 106 coffee factories merged to have a joint milling and marketing strategy was aimed at setting better prices for the farmers produce.

The majority of the farmers earn as low as Sh1.50 per kilogramme, far below the minimum rates set by the county government.

More than 5,500 Mathira North farmers’ Co-operative Society members recently protested against payment rates issued by the management.

The farmers are now urging the Governor to intervene and ensure payment rates are consistent with what he had promised.

Speaking at Kiamariga market where they had converged to ventilate their concerns, the farmers accused the management for disregarding their efforts.

They further said they were suspicious of the low payment rates which they claimed were being doctored by the management.

“The management is yet to account for more than Sh34 million, which we suspect was not factored in when the rates were being declared,” Charles Nyamu, a farmer, said.

“We will not accept the new rates until the Governor sheds more light on this,” Nyamu said.

Nyamu said when Gachagua visited them in August, the Governor said that farmers at Kiamariga coffee factory would receive Sh70 per kilogramme of coffee.

However, the management has declared final payment rates of Sh9.50.

In addition, Kahiraini factory was set to receive Sh80 but according to new rates announced by the society, farmers will not receive any cash.

The farmers claimed they have been told to clear an outstanding debt of Sh6.5 million. “Farmers from Kabiru-ini are set to receive Sh2.4 per kilogramme down from Sh55, Ruiruiru will receive Sh4.00 from Sh70 and Hiriga Sh1.50 instead of Sh59 as promised by Gachagua,” Nyamu noted.

James Muhoro, another farmer, said they were shocked to learn that they would only receive as little as Sh240 per kilogramme in unclear circumstances.

The county government in bid to improve the farmers’ payment, introduced pool marketing initiative.

“We support the county government pool marketing initiative, however, we are perturbed that the management makes decisions without consulting us,” Muhoro lamented.

Speaking to The Standard on Sunday on phone, County Agriculture Secretary, Shadrack Mubea, said farmers’ payment had improved under the pool marketing initiative as announced by the Governor.

Huge debts

“The rates had declined because most of the farmers had huge debts from the outstanding Sh6.5 million, which are now being recovered,” Mubea noted.

Others, he said, had delivered part of their coffee to Coffee Marketing Services instead of Kenya Planter’s Co-operative (KPCU) where more than 106 factories took their coffee.

Mubea said he is consulting the management committee on way forward to resolve the rates issue.

“We will soon convene a meeting with farmers from respective factories together with the society management to find a long term solution for the payment rates,” he added.

Chaos erupted recently in a meeting at Mutitu Coffee Factory, Mukurweini, when farmers protested against ‘meager earnings’ compared to those announced by the county government.

The farmers claimed the management had over charged them, saying, the county government-which sold out the region’s coffee under the pool initiative had promised to pay them Sh67 for every kilo of cherry delivered.

However, it turned out during the meeting that the factory would only pay them Sh41.70.

Hell broke loose when the factory’s chairman, Mr Anthony Kiregi while reading out the factory’s performance over the last one year, announced that the farmers were to receive Sh67, but the cost of operations had reduced the amount to Sh51.70 per kilogramme.

“The farmers had also been awarded Sh10 advance payment, which will be recovered from the full amount, bringing the net to Sh41.70,” said Kiregi.

It is this revelation that angered the farmers who engaged the chairman and other officials in war of words as they sought an explanation.

They accused the society of imposing unnecessary expenditure on farmers, hence increasing deductions.

“It is unfortunate that Gachagua promised us Sh130 per kilogramme delivered, but our earnings have declined to Sh41,” said Kiregi.

Improved sales

“They declared we would be paid Sh67. How did it reduce to Sh41. We would like the Governor to shed more light on this,” he said.

The scenario is replicated in Othaya. Recently, a contingent of police officers blocked 500 angry farmers from storming Kagere Factory over alleged poor payments rates.

In a statement recently, the county government said it had received a gross sale of over Sh3.1 billion with 12 reduction in milling losses and over 25 per cent increase in premium grades allocation for the county’s production last season.

“The addition joint marketing initiative has improved sales from 5 per cent last past year to 40 per today,” Executive secretaries Miano (Trade) and Shadrack Mubea (Agriculture) said.

The executives said coffee production as well as payment rates has tremendously improved during the year 2013/ 2014 with payments rates increasing from 20 to 600 per cent compared to 2012/2013.

“This is for the 106 factories which utilised the joint coffee marketing initiative,” the statement further said.

The county government also commended the Kenya Co-operative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) for the role it played in milling and marketing of coffee.

KCCE is currently in court after its landlord, the KPCU announced it would not allow it to continue using the Sagana Coffee Mills .