Kenya produces nearly 1.5 per cent of the world's coffee. However, coffee producers are struggling to overcome two burdens inclement weather and bureaucratic inertia. The first problem is short-lived as Kenya has received average rainfall since the 1960's. This year, more than 262 millimetres (mm) of rain fell in January, followed by 172 mm in February.
Last month, has been drier but it is not enough. Tac Michaelides, general of one of the country's single largest estates, owned by the Franco-Belgium group Socfinaf says: "We require a long spell of dry weather otherwise the trees won't be stressed enough to produce good flowering." Without that, the quality and quantity of beans will be poor. The reason for the downpour is El Nio. At the start of 1997, Kenya experienced severe drought which cut its tea production by almost 40 per cent, though coffee was less affected. This year the threat comes from too much rain.
A decade ago, Kenya was producing about 100,000 tonnes of coffee a year. In 1987-88, it touched a peak of 128,926 tonnes, the second highest level ever recorded in the country. After that, there has been an inexorable decline; the 1996-97 harvest was about 65,000 tonnes, the lowest level yet.
The second problem is more difficult. The production collapse of the last decade has coincided with the increase in support given by the Kenyan government to the state-run Coffee board of Kenya, through which all the country's coffee producers must market their beans. Coffee planters are starting to ask why they are required to pay the board about six per cent of their gross revenues, in various levies and taxes, when they see little benefit from a state-controlled marketing board, and when the government promised six years ago fully to liberalise the industry.
The Coffee Board maintains a research centre, the running cost of which amounts to an extra levy on producers of about us $65 a tonne. However, one farmer says, "yet production by small-holders, the very people of the board meant to assist, has slumped dramatically in the last decade, by more than 30 per cent."
Some farmers say they would like to choose when to release their stocks, so as to take advantage of possible high prices. They do not want to have the Coffee Board act on their behalf and want to designate their own marketing agents.
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