Kenya Coffee Regions Update: Kenya's Coffee Industry Embraces New Opportunities with 2020 Coffee Bill Passage

Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

The Decline of Kenya's Coffee Industry

Kenya's coffee industry has gradually lost its brilliance, and this once-proud African gem has faded from its former glory. Kenya's coffee industry reached its peak in the 1990s but has been in decline ever since.

During the glorious era of Kenya's coffee industry, coffee farmers were caught up in struggles between cooperatives and institutional organizations. Later, due to persistently low coffee prices, climate change, and broken promises from cooperatives and institutional organizations, farmers lost their desire to grow coffee, leading to declining performance in Kenya's coffee industry, falling coffee prices, and dealing a massive blow to Kenya's coffee sector.

Subsequently, the Kenyan government began implementing a series of interventions in Kenya's coffee industry, aimed at reforming the country's coffee sector. The most critical intervention was the introduction of a direct sales model, also known as the "Second Window," allowing farmers to sell their coffee beans directly to overseas buyers.

However, only a small minority successfully sold their coffee beans directly to buyers. Reform advocates stated that performance had become even worse than before, with many farmers still struggling desperately in the swamp of poverty.

Farmers themselves face difficulties entering the international market to find international buyers, and with the scheming of local cartels, farmers attempting to sell coffee beans directly to overseas buyers find it even more challenging. To export their products, farmers can only seek help from government-established organizations to facilitate exports, but the management personnel within these organizations have no knowledge of coffee whatsoever.

With the emergence of the "Second Window" sales model, three types of related business licenses - processing, marketing, and distribution - are required to be held. Since the license application process is rife with corruption, farmers can only cooperate with agents, but farmers' hard work ultimately yields only 30% of the sales amount, with the remaining 70% being pocketed by agents.

Recent Reforms and Future Prospects

Kenya's coffee industry now stands on unstable foundations with declining production capacity. Only by improving coffee quality can the coffee industry become profitable again, which means Kenya's coffee sector must undergo reforms once more. In 2020, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture restored the Coffee Board of Kenya; through the Coffee Act of 2020, the Coffee Board of Kenya will register and regulate processing plants, marketing agents, purchasers, roasters, packagers, management personnel, and warehouse operators.

The Coffee Board of Directors will be composed of a chairperson appointed by the cabinet secretary responsible for agriculture, 3 members representing coffee growing cooperatives, 2 members representing coffee estates, and 2 members representing coffee traders. It will also participate in formulating policies for the coffee sector and authorize the issuance of licenses for new processing plants, marketing agents, purchasers, roasters, warehouse keepers, and value-added coffee importers.

The Board of Directors will also provide capacity building, technology transfer, and technical assistance to domestic counties on coffee matters, provide relevant consulting services for coffee production, and will levy taxes on growers, importers, and buyers in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

Whether this reform will bring new opportunities to Kenya's coffee industry remains to be seen.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473