Kenya: Controversy Brews Over Coffee Milling

Two years ago, Mr Ndei was in a cyber café in Karatina town when he came across the Utz Kapeh web site. The organisation oversees the implementation of global standards and socially and environmentally responsible coffee growing and sourcing practices.

From the web site he learnt that certified coffee that meets traceability requirements fetch premium prices. As a committee member of the then Ruthanga Coffee Factory, the farmer proposed to other members that their factory seek Utz Kapeh certification so that they could sell their coffee at a higher price. "We contacted Utz Kapeh and when their representatives did an appraisal, the committee and the farmers agreed that certification was the way to go. They then looked for donors from Norway to finance the certification project," said Mr Ndei.

Once audited, Ruthagati was set to become the first coffee factory in the country to be certified under the Utz Kapeh programme. External inspectors who were contracted as certifying agents audited 600 farms and the factory itself and found they deserved certification.

So as the 960 small-scale farmers affiliated to the factory embraced the good agricultural, little did they know that the move would spark controversy and put them at the risk of losing millions of shillings.

At stake too were more than 2,000 bags of parchment for the last season that have been lying at the factories store since January. The yet-to-be resolved controversy revolves around who should mill the coffee between Thika Coffee Mills (TCM), the Kenya Planters' Co-operative Society (KPCU) and Socfinaf.

The factory is an affiliate of Rutuma Coffee Farmers' Society and the dispute pits its officials against farmers delivering the produce to the factory. There are some farmers opposed to the certification process too.

"By the time their farms and factory became certified, the farmers had already signed milling and marketing contracts with the KPCU. Reversing that is hard since it would mean legitimising an illegality," says Mr Karugu Macharia, a consultant for Utz Kapeh.

Global standards

The farmers want to annul their contract with KPCU in favour of Socfinaf after the latter allegedly failed get a certification. "There is no provision in either the Coffee or the Cooperatives Act that prohibits change of a milling decision," says factory chairman P N Githitho.

He says he wrote to the KPCU to know when it would be certified in line with Utz Kapeh programme but no response was forthcoming.

The KPCU has over the years milled coffee from the society but since the factory was certified the members do not want to hear anything of it. "Today farmers strongly prefer Socfinaf to mill their coffee because it is the only miller that is certified by Utz Kapeh," said Mr Githitho. "Each of the 2,000 bags of parchment will attract a premium of US$7 just because it is Utz Kapeh certified." For the coffee to meet global standards, the factory where it is pulped and the miller have to be certified under the Utz Kapeh best practices.

Security agents have had some times to intervene and break the stand-off between the farmers affiliated to the factory and society officials. In March, the farmers dug trenches around the factory to bar society officials from collecting the parchment for milling at KPCU. As the possibilities of incurring heavy losses from destroyed parchment look so real, the farmers have been making frantic efforts to have the Government resolve the stalemate. Mr Ndei says donors had given the factory Sh4 million for the certification programme. Much of the money was used to train farmers' promoters at the Coffee Research Foundation in Ruiru.

In November last year at a farmers' meeting convened by the Nyeri district Cooperative officer, a KPCU official allegedly told the members that his organisation was in the process of being certified. "A contract has duration and as an organisation the KPCU has got its own ways of doing things," said Mr Eric Kathanga, the public relations manager at the KPCU.

Anxiety

A new coffee picking season has set in with a mixture of apprehension and anxiety among Ruthagati farmers. They still insist that the society chairman convene a meeting to decide on who should mill their coffee. "This coffee parchment is getting soaked in our dilapidated wooden store," says Mr Githitho in a letter to the Central Provincial Commissioner, Mr J K Rugut. "White ants are feasting on it. We have been denied the choice of a miller by queue voting."

According to Mr Macharia, various parties were set to meet last week to look for a middle-ground over the saga since there was a Swedish dealer waiting to buy the coffee.

"We are liasing with the certifying bodies - either Africert or SGS - to see if the miller can meet certain conditions, at least for the time being, so that we can break this stalemate," said Mr Macharia.

Central provincial cooperative officer Geoffrey Karuku blames the controversy on politics that have been the hallmark of the coffee industry. "There's no big deal on the issue of milling since coffee from each factory is milled separately," he says.