Farmers in Uasin Gishu that ventured into coffee farming have already started reaping from the fruits of heeding the diversification calls.
While the farmers have been planting maize since time immemorial, most of them have faced many challenges among them poor prices and high cost of production.
But with the onset of devolution, the county government of Uasin Gishu introduced a program which it provided farmers with free coffee seedlings.
The program, County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture and Agribusiness Edward Sawe says, was first introduced in 2016 and to date over 850,000 seedlings have been distributed.
In total the county has about 1.3 million coffee bushes distributed among 1,300 farmers that have embraced coffee farming.
Cecilia Keiy is one of the farmers that ventured into farming at the time the county was asking them to.
“I started coffee farming in 2018 and we’re among the pioneers that year,” Keiy, a farmer in Kipsao, Kapseret Sub County says.
She is currently picking her cherries and so far, the journey has been good.
“We had challenges but we’re seeing there is hope we will get something good as we go ahead,” says the farmer who has harvested a number of times.
Better returns
But 2023 is her first major harvest.
Alex Arusei, another farmer in Kapseret says returns on coffee are far higher than what he has been getting from maize.
Arusei has planted maize for the last 30 years but he has had nothing to show for
But with barely three years of coffee farming, he has already bought a motorbike, with barely 300 coffee trees.
“Coffee pays. I have been a maize farmer for between 20 to 30 years but I have never bought anything. However with coffee, I already have a motorcycle and I see myself getting my first car soon,” the farmer says.
Training
With more and more farmers getting into coffee, the New Kenya Planters Cooperative Union (KPCU) has been training them on the processes that their coffee goes through from the time they are picked until they reach the market.
Moses Wanduasi, the New KPCU North Rift manager says they have so far trained at least 800 farmers in the county.
“There is a lot of potential in coffee farming here because we have enough land,” Wanduasi says.
Aside from being trained on coffee processes, the New KPCU is also sensitizing farmers on the Cofee Cherry Advanced Revolving Fund which allow farmers to access credit at no interest rate as they await their produce to be sold.
Over Ksh3 billion has been set aside for the fund across the country.
In Uasin Gishu, over Ksh200,000 has been distributed to farmers.
“We had issues in the disbursement of the funds due to Covid-19 as there were no farmers meetings but now that we’re back to operations, we expect uptake to increase,” said Sheila Wamboi, an officer in charge of new KPCU Cofee Cherry Advanced Revolving Fund.
This year, coffee farmers in Uasin Gishu are estimated to produce about 120,000 kilograms of clean coffee with a market value of Ksh60 million.
“The value however depends on the price that is determined at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. It could be higher,” says the Uasin Gishu Agriculture Executive.
