Kenya has a distinct position in the global coffee market. When our coffee is not used as a blend for other inferior-quality coffees, it is a prominent and loved product in high-end speciality markets. The explosive acidity and distinctive fruity notes of the Kenyan coffee has rendered it an easy sell.
Unfortunately, behind the reputable Kenyan coffee brand is a legion of over 700,000 small-scale farmers, most of whom appear to have been short-changed in the trade.
In fact, the ongoing payment of the 2022 harvest paints a bleak future. At least since 2019, the industry has shown signs of revival with a kilo of coffee cherry fetching above Sh100. As a youth who has made an investment in coffee farming, this is not a good welcome with revenues falling.
While coffee reforms have been the basis of government development agenda for the last two decades, much remains to be done. And as a tradition of all newly elected Kenyan presidents, William Ruto's administration was also quick to pronounce itself on coffee matters barely months into office.
The mandate was passed to the Office of the Deputy President. At the same time, the Coffee Bill 2023 sponsored by Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango is undergoing public participation. How these two initiatives will merge is yet to be seen.
But the question that has been bothering me is why the Kenyan coffee industry is such a hard nut to crack
First, we do not seem to agree who the cartels are. The general perception is that cartels are coffee markers or brokers who distort the market for their selfish financial interests. In fact, the past coffee reform task forces have tackled cartels based on this definition.
However, there is also a large faction of coffee farmers acting as cartels. It takes a lot of sacrifice and time to have good quality coffee and if one farmer compromises some agronomic aspects, it has wide-reaching impacts for the coffee quality of a whole cooperative.
For example, if a good coffee farm borders with unattended one, an extra investment especially for pesticides is needed. In addition, such farms are a menace to the overall coffee quality of a given cooperative.
Currently, most farmers in Central Kenya are doing an average of two to three kilogrammes per stem against an optimal yield of 10 kilogrammes. This points to a production problem and by extension, it affects the quality profile of our coffee.
With part of our coffee meant for specialty markets, quality cannot be compromised. Recent analysis shows that the best and most preferred grade AA only makes around 10 per cent of the beans traded at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange.
Additionally, with most farmers doing an average annual production of 700 kilogrammes, it is hard to make good margins, especially considering that payments take over a year to be effected.
To be fair though, years of poor pay have led our production here. But at least if you decide to remain in the trade, try to be good.
Secondly, although production levels have an issue, most frustration in the coffee sector emanates from marketing. Since the dissolution of the Coffee Board in 1990s, the coffee market became liberalised. Powerful companies now dominate the upstream levels of the value chain.
Is there a way out of this yoke? It is very unlikely these monopolistic market players are willing to negotiate. Further, installing new policies to check their dealings has also proved ineffective. Refer to multiple coffee reform initiatives spanning over two decades.
But this is not to say we have exhausted all solutions. To the contrary, Kenya is steps behind in leveraging its reputation for gourmet coffee.
Leading global coffee producers spanning from Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Vietnam have all adopted policies on use of Geographical Indications (GI).
As for Ethiopia, it uses trademark. In essence, GI allows differentiation of a product through origin, and is a marketing trend gaining traction in the international trade.
Without a GI policy, Kenya exports over 95 per cent of its coffee as green coffee, with no differentiation to the coffees' separate identities.
This means the brand of Kenyan coffee is not protected, and unscrupulous dealers can mark their products 'Kenyan Coffee', yet it could be containing a small percentage of beans sourced from Kenya. This is a viable starting point to negotiate a higher pay for producers.
Time is nigh to implement a national GI for the Kenyan coffee, especially at a time the specialty markets are expanding.
New markets such as China and the Middle East are also coming up, not forgetting the gigantic opportunity AfCFTA offers in terms of Kenyan coffee penetrating the African market.
