Gachagua presses on with coffee plan

Coffee farmers and leaders of variuos coffee societies in Nyeri follow proceedings during a stakeholders meeting at Information hall in Nyeri town on September 19, 2013. They were deliberating on ways of forming a joint marketing body for their crop in a meeting that was graced by Nyeri governor Nderitu Gachagua. Photo/ JOSEPH KANYI

What you need to know:

  • Governor vows he will continue pushing central milling of produce
  • Farmers societies urged to take their produce to a common miller

Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua has vowed to move ahead with his efforts to centralise coffee milling in the region despite opposition some farmers.

The county government in October 2013 had issued a circular informing the farmers the from this year all coffee would be milled from a central point.

However, 13 coffee farmers’ societies moved to court and obtained an injunction pending hearing on February 10.

Speaking on Wednesday after inspecting the Sagana Coffee Mills, the proposed central point, Mr Gachagua accused the dissenting societies of being funded by private millers who had been making hefty profits by defrauding farmers through exaggerated milling loss and poor grading of coffee parchments.

The governor defended his government’s decision for central milling, saying it was arrived after a resolution with farmers.

The management of the dissenting societies had not consulted their members, he claimed.

Farmers stood to benefit from selling coffee together and the county government was only exercising its supervisory role in agriculture as a devolved function, according to Mr Gachagua.

CARTELS

“By milling their coffee together, farmers will free themselves from cartels which have millers who come to take coffee, go process it and months later come to tell farmers how many kilos of coffee parchments were realised,” said Mr Gachagua.

“Farmers have a right to a transparent process,” he added. “What is wrong with a farmer getting what is rightfully his?”

At the Sagana mills, farmers would have their coffee samples tested in their presence before they hand in all their produce, hence eliminating chances of fraud, said the governor.