Good News To Coffee Farmers In Kenya As They Can Now Sell Directly To Consumers In South Korea

Kenyan coffee farmers can now sell their coffee direct to consumers in South Korea without going through a brokerage. This is after a successful shipment of the first consignment to South Korea.

The exports were ferried by Bolloré Transport & Logistics which was recently commissioned to handle transport on behalf of farmers

The direct export of coffee was one of the recommendations made by the government to reform the sector to enable farmers to market their produce directly with a view to fetch a better price for their produce.

In March this year, the first test shipment to be undertaken by Bolloré, which will also oversee the processing, bulking, stuffing and shipping of the containerised cargo was flagged off to South Korea.

Through this operation, Bolloré will be able to support 9,582 small-scale farmers from the South Rift.

“One of the commitments at Bolloré Transport & Logistics is to foster local development through the services we offer. We appreciate the vision and efforts to improve the value of coffee to local farmers, and we intend to play our part as a logistics provider to support our clients and help them grow their business,” Said Auni Bhaiji, Bolloré’s East Africa Regional Director for Operations, Corporate Development, and External Affairs.

Bolloré, he said, has a high level of expertise to handle “sensitive commodities that represent a high value”.

The company handles 60 percent of all coffee exports from Kenya and operates the largest public warehouse licensed by the Coffee Board of Kenya with 15,000 square metres dedicated space in Nairobi and Mombasa and services focusing on storage, in house processing, logistical planning, land and sea transport.

“Bolloré as a global logistics provider, is keen on leveraging on its network to ensure that the farmers can access the untapped markets and export their produce,” said Mr Bhaiji.

In the new arrangement, farmers will benefit by cutting brokers’ fee which amount to about half of the price per kilogramme.

“In the global market, Kenya Coffee price ranges between Sh413 and Sh510 per kilogramme or between Sh187 and Sh231 per pound (lb) but farmers are paid between Sh250 and Sh300 which is far less the recommended price as the rest is collected by brokers,” said John Koech, a coffee Kenyan farmer.

“We have agreed with the government to facilitate us to sell our produce directly to consumers through embassies and high commissions in coffee-consuming countries and South Korea has proved this can work.”

Coffee farming in Kenya is largely done by small-scale farmers in different parts of the country.

Over the last decade, coffee farmers in Kenya have gradually dropped the crop and adopted other agricultural economic activities as the berries turned unprofitable, amid exploitation by brokers buying the crop directly from them at throwaway prices.

Coupled with other factors, coffee production has been on a decline from an average of 130,000 tonnes in 2000 to around 40,000 tonnes per year in 2021 according to the Nairobi Coffee exchange.

Coffee is one of the most important cash crops in Kenya with a total production of about 50,000 tons annually making it the 25th largest exporter of Arabica coffee in the world.

Kenya earned $213 million from coffee export in the period January to November 2021, with the value surpassing the entire 2020 earnings that stood at 196 million dollars according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) export data.

During the 2021 trading period, Kenya’s coffee prices ranged from Sh400 to Sh630 up from Sh250 to Sh590 in 2020, according to KNBS.

ARTICLE: CREDIT