Coffee marketing revamped

Embu,

Saturday, October 28, 2023

KNA by Steve Gatheru

Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi has assured coffee farmers that the marketing of coffee is returning to normal after the hiatus occasioned by the cancellation of some trader’s licenses after the government branded them cartels.

Linturi told a farmers' meeting in Embu yesterday that the activity at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange resumed on Thursday with coffee worth $2.8 million US dollars being traded.

He said farmers can now be able to offload the huge stocks of parchment coffee that had been piling up after the government cancelled the licenses of some key players that United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party affiliated politicians accused of behaving like cartels by registering milling and marketing companies that they accused of manipulating the marketing chain to the detriment of the farmers.

Linturi, who addressed farmers during a field day organized by the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) urged farmers to adopt modern technology in agriculture which he said will help to counter the negative effects of climate change and ensure higher yields from reducing parcels of agricultural land.

He urged farmers to adopt available genetically modified (GMO) seeds saying they held the answer to reduction in yields occasioned by land fragmentation.

Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire appealed to the government to help farmers offset a Sh 170 million debt owed by the Kavutiri Coffee Mill. The debt was initially Sh 90million but it has ballooned after the mill owned by various co-operative societies was unable to service the loan.

The Governor said the farmers in Embu deserve to be considered for a write-off of their debts like those in the sugar belt and added that the resolution of the debt would encourage co-operatives that had not joined the mill to buy shares. Linturi promised to prepare a Cabinet Memo for consideration by the Government.

Linturi assured the county's farmers that ‘mogoka’ had been scheduled as a cash crop and what remained was for the National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA) to declassify cathinone and cathine, the active substances in mogoka, as psychotropic substances. He argued that even the World Health Organization had removed khat from the list of addictive substances.

He said to lower the cost of food, the government was encouraging farmers to produce more by providing subsidized inputs and facilitating the Agricultural Finance Corporation to give affordable credit to farmers.

Courtesy; KNA