NAIROBI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has embarked on promoting value addition and domestic consumption for coffee to create both foreign and local markets, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Mwangi Kiunjuri, the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry for Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation, said the government is investing to revitalize the sector through deployment of resources to strengthen research and innovation and extension.
"The government intends to address the declining production, reduction in area under coffee, low yields and poor returns that has exacerbated farmer's poverty," Kiunjuri said in Nairobi during the launch of the Kenya Coffee Platform.
He noted that the government has started giving coffee farmers affordable loans, developing infrastructure, development of local and international markets and establishment of farm inputs schemes.
The CS said the sub-sector is critical to Kenya's economy and must be supported to the fullest.
"We are currently availing disease tolerant coffee varieties such as Batian and Ruiru 11 to lowering production costs, conducting trainings to equip stakeholders on quality assurance and adherence to standards," he added.
Kiunjuri said problems such as high farm input costs, price volatility, obsolete processing technology, aging farmers and climate change and poor management of the cooperatives are being looked into.
The CS told coffee stakeholders to ensure that the forum become a catalyst to the industry to transform the coffee sector through constructive dialogue.
He said that Kenya eyes to raise coffee production from the current 40,000 metric tons to 100,000 metric tons by 2022.
According to Karogo Macharia, the chairman of Kenya Coffee Platform, the industry contributes over 200,000 permanent jobs and another 200,000 temporary and casual jobs providing an estimated 30 percent of labour in the agricultural sector. It also contributes about 1 percent to the national GDP and 8 percent of the total agricultural export earnings.
