The swirling coffee berry angst

NAIROBI: Rich; the dark aromatic swirl of a stir and in most cases the person stirring it. Rich also is the coffee trader who has put up a Sh10 billion bond to sell this precious commodity overseas.

The coffee farmer is rich with hope, with expectation, rich with hunger, poverty and rich with time to keep listening to what everybody else has to say about coffee. The coffee farmer is also rich in acreage and labour; rich in everything but the money.

Lately, there is a trend where coffee is stolen from the factories, never mind that it does not get stolen and thrown away, it still finds its way to the coffee market.

Maybe no one checks the source of coffee at the market. It may even be a well-orchestrated plan to earn quick money at the farmer’s expense.

For how long can we parade poor farmers alongside an expensive brew? There are notable instances where the farmers’ children have gone abroad to study and have seen how valuable coffee is.

They have come home with grand plans on how to turn the market around and benefit the farmer.

When they get to the ground, they discover cartels that will not let their grand plans see the light of day. In frustration, they have shuffled between farmer and co-operative societies pitching their remedial plans.

The ones who stayed vocal and won the farmers’ confidence have been lucky to get political votes from the farmers.

This goes to show that farmers recognise political goodwill as part of the solution to their woes. All in the hope of bringing change; sadly the change is not here yet.

The frustration keeps growing; farmers let it out on their fellow farmers at managerial positions. Co-operative society meetings have turned into fist rallies. They want change.

What is this change? Better rates are the first answer. Makes sense that farmers demand good prompt pay for their crop, but the reality is they have no control over the market.

On paper, coffee is a cash crop for the farmer, in reality; coffee is a cash crop for the seller.

The day the coffee farmer decides to stop being just a labourer, change will come. I am a coffee farmer’s child who understands the labour provision more than I understand the figures.

The selling price of coffee per kilo to overseas buyers and how it breaks down to my father’s Sh10 per kilo can never match my coffee carrying back-ache. Sitting at an annual general meeting at the milling factory as the figures are explained is torture.

The chilly mornings at the farm, picking red berries while making sure I do not bruise them will not add up at a meeting with suited men talking berry grade.

I will not leave out instances of trauma at meeting chameleons with bare hands at the coffee branches. When I think about it now I could have saved the sound decibels I let out across the ridges in terrified nonsense.

Maybe I would be a soprano lead at the opera today. But here I am, still talking coffee.

Coffee farmers must be the change they want is my point. Every one of them could find a way of earning more from the crop. Learn to dry, roast and grind the coffee beans for starters.

Brew a mean espresso and sip while you think of where to sell it. Be the boss. Learn how to add value to coffee; may be blend it with something, package it and sell at a profit.

Sounds easy I know, more like a fantasy. But if the farmers are still waiting upon the co-operative societies which have been soloing this messy dance, and the Government which works with the co-operative societies, we will still be talking about poor farmers 20 years from now.

Since 1983 when we started growing coffee and with an estimated 160,000 hectares growing this crop, we are talking about nearly 700,000 coffee growers in the small holder category.

This translates to around one million bags a year of the finest Arabica coffee globally. If the management of co-operatives, legislative framework, and inclusive reforms to the sector are not immediately addressed as some of the mostly fronted solutions to the declining industry, the coffee story will slide into further depression.

The technical committee that reviewed the Coffee Act (Cap 333) suggested the incorporation of an autonomous marketing company or the restructuring of the coffee exchange as a company guaranteed by the Government and the Coffee Board of Kenya.

Lack of inclusive consultation with the farmers was a setback; the good thing though is that the report provided for the marketing company to be a private enterprise owned by coffee planters.

The small acreage farmer though is still on their own moving in a swirl from the coffee stir.