State will crush coffee cartels, revive sector – DP

In a resolute stance against long-standing issues plaguing Kenya’s coffee industry, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua reaffirmed the government’s unwavering commitment to dismantling cartels and brokers within the sector.

He pledged to address the circumstances faced by coffee farmers due to decades of exploitation by these groups.

Addressing the persistent exploitation of coffee farmers, Gachagua emphasized, “The industry has suffered for so many years under the manipulation of local and international companies, subjecting coffee farmers to grinding poverty by paying them peanuts despite the clean beans fetching premium prices in the international market.”

Gachagua’s remarks came during the reopening of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) at Wakulima House on Haile Selassie Avenue. The exchange had been suspended for over a month due to confusion surrounding permit issuance.

Symbolizing the reopening, Gachagua rang a bell, marking the resumption of auctions. During this event, 12 brokerage companies, all licensed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), offered 2705 bags of clean coffee for auction. Impressively, eleven out of the twelve brokerage companies were owned by district cooperative unions.

In the midst of the reopening, a challenge emerged from former coffee marketing agents who were yet to be licensed as new brokers.

These agents claimed to possess over 250,000 bags of clean coffee. The National Coffee Co-operative Union (NACCU), under the union brokerage institutions, had been licensed the previous year by CMA.