Coffee exchange makes first payment for farmers’ samples

An official at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange prepares samples. PHOTO | FILE  

Coffee farmers have for the first time received payment for their crop samples taken to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) in a payout that will boost growers’ earnings in the wake of low international prices.

Coffee farmers linked to the NCE offer the trading auction 250 grams of their crop weekly for price sampling through the growers’ marketing agencies but they have not been receiving payment for the samples which run into tonnes of produce.

Now, the NCE will start paying for the samples and Wednesday the auction offered farmers Sh20 million for the quantities taken from them in the last eight months.

“We are paying this money for the first time from the samples that we have been collecting since February last year,” said Daniel Mbithi, chief executive of the NCE.

READ: Coffee farmers to earn Sh20m from auction samples

The money has already been send to marketing agencies which will in turn pay farmers.

Of the Sh20 million, Sasini received Sh2.9 million, CME Sh2.8 million while Tropical farm got Sh3 million, among others. Agriculture principal secretary Sicily Kariuki said the government had stepped up efforts to increase coffee production in order to boost farmers’ earnings.

Ms Kariuki said the ministry had established an integrated coffee plan that would see the acreage under the crop increase in over 20 counties.

Coffee production has dropped from 130,000 tonnes in the 1980s to about 50,000 tonnes currently in what has been attributed to change in land use in favour of real estate in areas like Kiambu.

“Coffee is a major foreign exchange earner for our country but the volumes have been going down,’’ she said.