Arabica254

Introduction Coffee remains a major export earner for Kenya and ensures the livelihood of 700,000 small holder farmers. This represents 3.5 million people benefiting directly from coffee. They are organized into producer cooperatives producing 60% of Kenyan coffee and the balance coming from estates (large, small and medium).

Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) is a farmers owned coffee exporting organization that was established to promote direct trade. KCCE was formed in year 2009 when the producer cooperatives put their synergies together and established the organization. KCCE facilitates the small scale growers who process their coffee at the cooperative-managed washing stations to participate in direct trade.

Both the coffee importers and farmers are linked directly resulting in better prices for the farmers and improved quality. KCCE guarantees you the finest coffees reputed the world over for the full bodied, fruity floral notes, with deep complex overtones.

Since then the coffee farmers have been marketing some of their coffee directly to buyers overseas. The aim being to establish markets for their coffees by creating stronger business relationships, understanding the market requirements and producing quality coffees for specific markets as opposed to offering what is available. It should be appreciated that Kenya coffee was still being offered in the market through the central auction and is available in the international market.

However, actual benefits were not reaching the producers thus leaving them demoralized resulting in the neglect of their coffee. As a result, coffee production declined from a high of 1 30 000 metric tons to less than 50, 000 metric tons.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

“auction” means the auction system under which coffee is offered for sale at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange;

“coffee” means the plant botanically known as Coffea species (L.) and includes the fruit, whether on the plant or detached therefrom, the seed known as buni, parchment coffee, clean coffee, roasted seeds and ground coffee;

“coffee trade” means the business of dealing in the commodity of coffee and includes milling, warehousing, selling, buying, roasting, grinding and packaging of roasted seed or ground coffee for reward or profit but does not include cultivation or production of coffee;

“commercial miller” means any person who mills ten thousand or more metric tonnes of parchment coffee per crop year on wholesale basis for the purpose of providing service for financial profit;

“dealer” means a person who or which buys clean coffee at the auction for himself or itself as an exporter or on behalf of a dealer residing outside Kenya, whether or not for the purpose of resale in the export market;

“dealing in coffee” means acquiring, holding, selling, or exporting coffee for purposes of trade but does not include distributing or moving coffee from one area to another;

Fund” means the Coffee Development Fund established by section 34

Kenya Coffee Act

Coffee was first introduced in Kenya in 1983.The area under coffee has continusly increased and currently its coverage is 114,500 hectares (2016/17).A third of this is under estate and the rest is under small holder co-operatives sectors. There are 800,000 growers under the co-operative sector while the estate sector has 4000 growers.

Kenya grows Arabica coffee at an altitude range of 1400 to 210 meters above sea level, on rich volcanic soils.Rainfall is distributed throughout the year with annual precipitation of between 100mm -1600mm and temperature range of 20 to 25 degree Celcius.

There are two distinct flowerings in each year.The first occurs shortly after the long rains in March to June and short rains in September to November.The main crop is harvested in the months of October to December and the fly crop in the months of May to July. The combination of lattitude,altitude,mountainous climate,rich volcanic soils and well defined seasons provide ideal conditions for the production of the renowned finest specialty coffee in the world.

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