Moses Kuria Borrows “Tea” from Nyakera

Gatundu legislator and government critic Moses Kuria was seen with The Kenya tea Sector Lobby Chairman Irungu Nyakera, whose push to reform the tea sector in Kenya has seen radical proposals passed into law. The Tea Bill 2020 will institutionalize the drive to release tea farmers from the deadly grip of cartels while assuring them of better incomes and less interference by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA).

The coffee Sector has suffered similar challenges to the tea sector; poor yields, low competitiveness, lack of corporate governance in sales & payments, and mismanagement of cooperative societies. The proposed Coffee Bill 2020 offers a lifeline to the sector, similar to what the Crop (Tea Industry) Regulations, 2020 did to the Tea Sector.

The Tea and Coffee Sectors in Kenya are critical to the Kenyan economy, with 32 counties growing coffee and 25 counties growing tea. Some counties have both tea and coffee with Kiambu, Nyeri, Muranga, and Kirinyaga accounting for more than 50% of Kenyan coffee exports. Despite being one of the leading export earners in the early 1990s, the production levels have declined to the current 750,000 bags per coffee year (0.2% of global production). About 95% of Kenya’s coffee is exported earning the country around Ksh 20 billion every year, with over 800,000 households depending on coffee.

Moses Kuria has been advocating for the legislation of minimum returns for farmers in various value chains. The success of the tea sector regulations seems to have prompted the legislator to seek guidance from Nyakera, to increase the chances of the Coffee reforms happening in time for the 2022 elections.

In December 2020, Moses Kuria has had hosted a meeting between the Parliamentary Lobby  Last evening the parliamentary lobby on Guaranteed Minimum Returns (GMR), and the  Ministry of Agriculture to thrash out contentious issues in the Coffee Bill 2020. Moses Kuria in the company of Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya and New KPCU chairman Henry Kinyua held public sensitization meetings on the Coffee Bill 2020.

In a social media post, Moses Kuria pointed out that the Bill will re-introduce the Coffee Board of Kenya, set up a Direct Settlement System to pay farmers directly, introduce a Coffee Stabilisation Fund, create full transparency on milling charges, society charges, and milling losses and bar millers and marketing agents from advancing expensive loans to farmers.

These changes once passed into law will mirror similar industry changes in the tea sector advocated by Irungu Nyakera, which started with 3 farmers going to court to stop the election of factory directors in 2019.

These coffee sector reforms are expected to have the blessings of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who set up a Ksh. 3 billion cherry advance fund in January 2020, after farmers, threatened to uproot their coffee bushes. THE fund will see farmers advanced up to 40% of the process in the coffee auction, savings them from exploitation by middlemen and financial institutions