- The farmers claimed that most millers in the coffee-growing county have shut down milling business after they failed to secure operational licenses from the county government as required by Coffee Regulations 2019.
Image: JOHN KAMAU
Coffee farmers from Gatundu South in Kiambu are up in arms with the government over the delicensing of most private millers in the county; a situation they say has caused them to only channel their produce to the New Kenya Planters Cooperative Union (NKPCU).
The farmers claimed that most millers in the coffee-growing county have shut down milling business after they failed to secure operational licenses from the county government as required by Coffee Regulations 2019.
According to the regulations, a person shall not establish or operate a coffee nursery unless the person is licensed by the respective county government.
Unlike in other counties where private millers have been licensed and continue to process the farmers’ produce, farmers in Gatundu South decried that they are forced to expensively transport their produce, for milling, to Nairobi.
Speaking after a meeting at Kimaraita Farmers’ Cooperative Society in Gachika village, the farmers lamented that failure to license the milling firms where they have been channelling their produce has denied them freedom to choose where to mill their produce.
The move, they added, has seen them incur losses in transportation and have at the same time not been able to sell their produce to the highest bidders as they only have a single firm to channel their harvests to.
“We want millers like Tropical and Sasini to be licensed so that we can continue selling our coffee to them. The government should not coerce us to sell our coffee only to KPCU because we know how impoverished farmers are in the yesteryears,” farmer Paul Kimani said.
Kimani farmers decried that while the government promised them that their coffee would earn them between Sh 40 and 80 per kilo of coffee berries, most coffee farmers are still impoverished and unable to meet their obligations due to low returns.
Judy Wanjira, a mother of two whose children have been sent home over school fees arrears said that despite their hard work, efforts made by farmers do not pay back owing to mismanagement and bad government policies.
“Failure to open the market for competition by millers has denied farmers a chance to explore opportunities for better returns,” Wanjira said.
In a bid to get rid of the coffee subsector of cartels who have allegedly been reaping farmers off their profits, the government in June last year delicensed all coffee value chain players who were obligated to apply for licensing afresh for consideration by the government.
While millers in other counties got their licenses and resumed operations, Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba who was at the farmer's meeting also decried that those in Kiambu County have been denied the crucial certification.
Wamuchomba called on the local government leadership and the national government to stop sabotaging the production and sale of coffee produce from the county to cushion farmers from further losses.
“There are attempts to return the monopoly of KPCU in the coffee sector and we all know where it left farmers. We want farmers to have the freedom to sell their coffee where they want. again we want the licenses of millers in Kiambu County to be renewed,” she said.
Meanwhile, the farmers called on the government to reconfigure the distribution of fertilizer systems to ensure they start getting the farm input on time.
They lamented that they have been walking long distances to secure fertilizer which they further said is never enough to feed their plantations.