Coffee reforms: Lessons learnt so far and the way forward

 

A year has just passed since the coffee reforms commenced. At this juncture, I must say that it is not the first time we have witnessed coffee reforms in Kenya. Reforms are almost daily business in the coffee sector. Every day the players, especially the farmers, are agitating for change. I hope that at the end of the day, we will witness a robust sector that is self-driven without necessarily relying on the government for waivers, subsidies, changes etc.

For the first time, we have seen coffee farmers legally (it has happened before unlawfully ending up with some arrests and bookings to Kamukunji police station) get onto the coffee auction podium and sell their coffee.

The reforms this year have led to a lot of suffering for the farmers due to delays in the milling and selling of coffee. It is long since we got to May without the final payout to the farmer. This has happened because last year, the coffee auction was inactive for about five months, waiting for directions due to the anticipated reforms.

We have also learnt that a single mill or two are not enough for the coffee that we produce. Though the milling capacity is much higher than our production, most farmers want their coffee milled and sold between January and mid-March.

On October 1, we entered into a fresh year. The farmer is supposed to go back to the drawing board and award milling, marketing and direct sale agency to the service providers. Last year, this exercise was done with so little information. The service providers that the farmer was used to did not qualify for the licence renewal. The farmer had to work with the few agents with licences.

Real issues

This year will be different as the farmer has the experience of how her coffee was milled and marketed. Unlike last year, this year's decisions will not be based on emotions, they will be based on objective evidence that is verifiable. There will be no more ‘mtu wetu’ mindset.

The farmer will consider real issues like the delay in coffee milling or lack of it, the condition of the coffee mill, the transparency of the process of booking, delivering, milling and transfer to the warehouse.

Brokers are licensed to take coffee to the auction on behalf of the growers. These will be evaluated in terms of promptness in selling, the prices realised, transparency etc. If a broker or his employees have some history in coffee dealings, then this also becomes a very important factor. This can be positive or negative and we have already seen this influence the decisions in the coffee year we are concluding.

The farmer should also consider how accessible a service provider has been in terms of giving feedback, attending to their queries and concerns, answering calls and calling or messaging back. Finally, the pricing of the services. The farmer should be keen on the actual charges.

One should not indicate a milling charge of 45 dollars per tonne just to be awarded the contract. Yet when the milling statement comes out it has other charges like handling, drying, labelling, colour sorting, bagging, mill storage, and transfers - all in dollars leaving the farmer’s hand empty. All these should be brought to the table at the factory’s cherry sorting bay where meetings are held to qualify the service providers.

Dr Maina is a coffee specialist