• Gachagua said among other institutional reforms, the government aims to revive the Coffee Board of Kenya and the Coffee Research Institute.
•The Deputy President will next month lead a delegation of coffee farmers, stakeholders and government officials to Colombia.
Image: DPCS
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has said frameworks to support coffee sub-sector reforms will be ready before the end of the year.
Speaking on Thursday when he received documents from stakeholders at his Karen Residence, Gachagua said the reforms will restore the lost glory of the crop and improve the life of the farmer.
The documents handed to him were the Meru Coffee Reforms conference metrics and roadmap, a draft sessional paper on sustainable quality coffee production for food security and wealth creation, the coffee bill 2023, a draft cooperatives Bill and the sessional paper on the national cooperative policy.
He said among other institutional reforms, the government aims to revive the Coffee Board of Kenya and the Coffee Research Institute.
This is alongside strengthening the New Kenya Planters Co-operative Union (KPCU).
"I am confident that we will succeed. We just need to know where the rain began beating us and trace our steps to see what we were doing when we got it right so we can do something similar," he said.
The DP said farmers will support the reforms because they have been involved.
He said President William Ruto's administration intends to increase coffee production from the current 50,000 metric tonnes annually to 200,000 metric tonnes within five years.
"I want to assure you of the state's commitment to pushing sustainable results in this sub-sector. We are willing to take the political heat from any direction it comes from because we are persuaded that great leaders are defined by their ability and capacity to take hard decisions in the interest of their society and country," he said.
Cabinet Secretary for the Cooperatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises( MSME) Development Simon Chelugui was present.
They also submitted their recommendations on the implementation of the resolutions made by coffee farmers during the conference held in Meru early in the year.
Among the recommendations is an amendment to the Coffee Bill which is pending in Parliament.
Another proposal is the amalgamation of coffee cooperative societies that are not economically viable.
"We must come up with economically viable cooperatives and threshold for election of leaders and officials of the societies," Gachagua said.
The Deputy President will next month lead a delegation of coffee farmers, stakeholders and government officials to Colombia.
They will attend the World Coffee Conference where they will also learn about the best practices of farming the commodity.
Next week, he said he will meet members of agriculture committees from the bicameral parliament to deliberate on the legislative agenda touching on the coffee business.