Kenya’s
Coffee Export up as Global Demand Surge
July 8 - 2021
Coffee Geography Magazine
Kenya’s coffee export has been improved for the last three
months due to reform measures by the government to boost farmers’
performance.
Secretary of Agriculture, Peter Munya explained to the media
that foreign buyers are very attractive to Kenya’s coffee beans despite the
size of the country’s production.
In the 2019-20 coffee year, the country exported 46,333 metric
tons of green bean that earned about 204 million U.S. dollars.
Secretary of Agriculture, Peter Munya
Munya said that despite Kenyan coffee continuing to fetch top
dollars in the international market, the payments to farmers per kilogram have
continued to decline.
"We intend to reform the sub sector by improving
efficiency, performance and earnings to farmers as well as increase
international sales of the commodity," Munya said during the launch of the
national coffee revitalization progress report.
The planed legal and regulatory coffee sector reform is designed
to address governance challenges that plagued the sector with a view to giving
coffee growers discretion in the processing, trading, sale and payments for
their coffee.
The size of the coffee farms has decreased by over 30 percent
from about 170,000 hectares in early 1990s to about 119,000 hectare in 2020.
The production has also decreased by over 70 percent from a peak
of 129,000 metric tons in 1983-84 coffee year to about 40,000 metric tons
currently.