President Uhuru Kenyatta must act to save coffee farmers

President Uhuru Kenyatta. President Kenyatta — and his friends in the political class, both in Jubilee and Cord — must act to give millions of farmers the chance to farm their way out of abject poverty. AFP FILE PHOTO | ANDREW COWIE 

In Summary

• That a sector can be organised and regulated to facilitate the exploitation of the many by the rich few in a society so poor runs against the essence of our nationhood.

By MUTUMA MATHIU
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US President Barack Obama has a nice turn of phrase. He speaks of “the urgency of now” and seizing the “arc of history”.

The structure and operations of the coffee industry in Kenya border on criminality.

The economy is hurt principally because we are importing too many things and exporting too few.

On the other hand, our so-called economic pillars — agriculture, tourism and manufacturing — are in something of a mess.

What the Nation’s fairness campaign for the coffee sector is trying to do is encourage the government to pay attention to these pillars because the intervention required to get them moving is not much.

CRIME AGAINST THE PEOPLE

The state of the coffee industry is a crime against the people.

That a sector can be organised and regulated to facilitate the exploitation of the many by the rich few in a society so poor runs against the essence of our nationhood.

President Kenyatta — and his friends in the political class, both in Jubilee and Cord — must seize the arc of history and correct this and give millions of farmers the chance to farm their way out of abject poverty.

Here are the things Mr Kenyatta can do for small coffee farmers:

• Get out of coffee, free the farmer from regulatory bondage. Let farmers grow, process, sell and own their own crop.
• Help all coffee growing counties provide farmers with soft loans to buy milling equipment so that through their cooperatives, they can process their produce without those stories of milling loss and so forth.
• Fix the market so that you have a commodity exchange, regulated properly, which allows both the farmer and the dealer to get a fair price.
• Create a fair market for farm inputs to ensure affordability, quality and safety.
• Help counties train farmers not just about crops, but about processing and marketing them.
• Form a task force to investigate the coffee sector with a view to prosecuting those who have brought in corruption and thievery.