Nairobi: Value addition to coffee should be prioritized by the government, private sector, and agricultural cooperatives to boost farmers' incomes, participants said Friday at a forum in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
The day-long Arabika Coffee Day meeting, attended by senior government officials, industry experts, and farmers, is expected to chart a new pathway for enhancing the processing of coffee before it is shipped to international markets.
Javan Ngeywo, coffee production value chain advisor at Kenya's Coffee Directorate, said the country exports more than 90 percent of its coffee in semi-processed form with minimal value addition at the local level.
"Through investments in coffee packaging and branding, Kenya can realize more foreign exchange earnings from the cash crop," Ngeywo said.
Kenya's coffee exports in 2024 increased by 12 percent to 53,519 tonnes, up from 47,861 tonnes in 2023, earning 38.4 billion Kenyan shillings (about 296.8 million U.S. dollars), compared to 251 million U.S. dollars in 2023, according to an economic report released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
Karugu Macharia, vice chairman of the African Fine Coffees Association, said Kenyan coffee farmers are yet to fully reap from the country's specialty coffee due to the reliance on the export of semi-processed produce.
Lucy Wambui Maina, chief executive officer of Ritho Farmers' Cooperative Society, a farmer-based cooperative in Kiambu County on the outskirts of Nairobi, emphasized that processing coffee beans before export would result in higher incomes, particularly for smallholder farmers.
Maina urged the government to support cooperatives to invest in equipment to enable smallholder coffee farmers to add value to their coffee crops.
