By KPC Reporter
For many years, coffee flourished as a foundation crop in the Gusii region, interlacing its way into the lives of households.
Today, uncountable persons in Nyamira and Kisii Counties leading modest lifestyles owe their education to the bounty that coffee delivered, changing the futures of those who cultivated it.
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Farmers formed cooperative societies and the future looked bright, as coffee emerged among the country’s top exports.
In nearly every corner of Gusii, the cooperative societies once boasted pulsating processing installations.
However, today, much of this apparatus lies in disorder.
Many of the machines have come to a halt, ringing the rich past of the region’s coffee heritage.
Poor Prices
Known coffee farmers in the region are equally old, with the younger generation yet to fully embrace coffee farming due to the unprofitability the venture has been recording in recent years.
As such, the older farmers are exiting the stage with the younger population lacking in knowledge on how to properly plant, tend, prune, harvest and process coffee and reap profits along the value chain.
To revive coffee farming in the region, the County Government of Kisii has dispatched extension officers to train farmers on best practices in coffee farming.
The officers are also taking note of the condition of the coffee pulping machines in various societies.
“We went round and took information on the status of coffee processing pulping machines. A number of the machines are very old. We are going to improve so that quality is improved at the processing points,” says Kisii County’s Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives Executive Elijah Obwori.
He explained that the county government has allocated some money for the modernization of the machines.
The new machines will improve the quality at the processing point.
The exercise is being done in collaboration with the Kenyan National Farmer’s Federation and Solidad.
The collaborators recently organized a farmers’ field day at Motonto Farmers’ Cooperative Society to teach members on modern coffee farming methods.
They also aimed to inspire a new generation of farmers to embrace coffee, a primary crop and key exchange earner in the country.
“We aim at helping our farmers to know how coffee is planted, all the way to production, and processing. We also link them to organizations which provide farm inputs such as pesticides,” added Obwori.
Passing it to the youth
The Kenya National Farmers Federation project Officer Fridah Kagwiria explained that the field day was themed around the empowerment of women and young people as the next caliber of coffee farmers.
“We blended the field day with gender training whereby through the project we aim at empowering women and youth,” she said.
Martha Moraa, an elderly coffee farmer noted that dwindling coffee prices have dampened the spirits of farmers; a matter that the government must look into if new farmers are to be brought on board.
“Coffee prices have been very bad in recent years. We want the government to make our coffee retail at over sh200 per kilo. That is the only price that can make sense to a coffee farmer in the current economy,” said Moraa.
Another farmer, Wilfred Abuda observed that the new pulping machines will make farming desirable and improve the quality of produce.
“We have been taught how to plant coffee seedlings. Let the government give us digital (modern) machines,” he said.
On his part, Daniel Makori, another farmer, observed that more lessons on how to prune coffee plants is still needed as that will go a long way in improving yields.
“There are new pruning techniques; that is why we have low income. I am requesting the county government to send extension officers to teach us how to prune best,” he said.
