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: 15 August 2018; Hits: 6445

Kenyan coffee farmers could gain more income from the US

Coffee cherries. Photo courtesy.

Laban Njuguna, a Kenyan entrepreneur based in Grand Island, a city in Nebraska ,US is seeking to market the county’s coffee in the state in a bid to benefit more Kenyan farmers as the country set strategies to improve production of the cash crop.

According to Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA), Kenya has put measures in place to increase annual coffee production from 40,000 metric tonnes to 48,000. The country is the world’s 16^th largest coffee producer while small family farmers produce about 70 per cent of the crop.

The entrepreneur devised the plan to bring the coffee directly from farmer co-operatives in Kenya to the US. His goal is to set up a specialty coffee marketplace.

“We want to make the supply chain more efficient for the benefit of farmers in Kenya,” Njuguna said during a meeting.

A Nebraska trade delegation is set to visit Kenya later this week to continue further discussions on making Grand Island a distribution hub of Kenyan coffee in the US.

The trade trip is being coordinated by the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corporation. The delegation will leave the country on Thursday.

GIAEDC President Dave Taylor, Njuguna and Nebraska State Senator, Dan Quick will head up the Nebraskan trade delegation. Other delegation members have expertise in irrigation, animal nutrition, science, food storage, logistics and distribution and agriculture.

According to Taylor, the delegation will also explore opportunities to export goods and services from Nebraska to Kenya.

In April, Grand Island welcomed a trade delegation from Kenya, including coffee producers, to open up negotiations about shipping coffee to Grand Island for processing and distribution.

Taylor said the US African Growth and Opportunity Act allows Kenyan coffee to come to the US tariff-free. The delegation will meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya during the visit. They will also meet with others, including coffee farmers and their cooperative leaders.

“Grand Island and Nebraska have a very unique trade opportunity with our partners in Kenya,” Taylor said.

“The direct import of Kenyan coffee into our community and the subsequent coffee auctions, as well as potential export opportunities, will have a major impact on the local economy and further Grand Island’s place in the global market.”

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: 14 August 2018; Hits: 10973

Green grams prices drop in Kitui due to over supply

The price of one kilogram of green grams (ndengu) has dropped to between Sh30 to Sh45 from Sh65 in January due to excess production driven by last year’s project where more than 6,000 farmers in Kitui received free green gram seeds at a cost of Sh100m.

The farmers want to sell their produce at Sh100 per kilo to enable them earn profits and realize their return on investment.

In 2017, the farmers received approximately 88.5 metric tonnes from the county government in collaboration with the Kenya Red Cross leading to a harvest of more than 33,000 tonnes of the produce hence flooding the market.

The programme dubbed ‘Ndengu Revolution’ was meant to end food insecurity in the County that has been grappling with pangs of hunger for a long period of time. It was also aimed at improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and reducing poverty by spurring rural development by reducing dependency on food aid, however, accessing markets is now a big challenge for the farmers.

Green grams sprout in arid Makueni

Research organization releases a new green gram variety for dry areas

ndengu

Green grams. Photo/courtesy

Currently, a 90kg bag of green grams is retailing at Sh6,200 in Nairobi, Sh5,800 in Mombasa, Sh7,200 in Kisumu, Sh10,800 in Eldoret, Sh6,300 in Nakuru and Sh8,500 in Malindi according to soko+, an online digital trading platform that connects smallholder farmers to bulk buyers of produce.

Kenya’s horticulture earnings rose to Sh56.23bn in the first four months of 2018 up from Sh40.57bn in a similar period last year according to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

The Horticultural Directorate reports that the industry is the fastest growing sub sector in agriculture in Kenya and has been buoyed by compliance with export market requirements by the European Union.

Earlier this year, the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service trained over 65 fruit and vegetable exporters on international market requirements for food safety on exports to the European Union at a time when EU has dictated strict standards for products imported from other countries.

The EU has placed Kenya on the radar as one of the countries with 10 per cent increased Maximum Residual Levels (MRLs), which are the set legal levels of concentration of pesticide residues in or on food.

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: 14 August 2018; Hits: 8834

Kenya overtakes South Africa, becomes biggest exporter of avocados in Africa

NAIROBI, 14 August 2018 – Kenya's impressive volumetric growth rate per year and access to new markets have helped the country to overtake South Africa as the number one exporter of avocados from Africa.

The East African country became the largest exporter of avocados in Africa in 2017, exporting a record volume of 51,507 tons to the world according to statistics from the international Trade Center. South Africa, traditionally the lead exporter of the world fruit from the Agriculture-rich continent, relinquished the position and trailed Kenya for the first time ever in history with 43,492 tons.

Kenya’s pool of the biggest importers includes the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and more recently, the Russian Federation. The UAE tops the list with some 12, 041 tons for the 2017 timeline. Saudi Arabia is the country’s fourth importer with some 4,874 tons worth of imports in 2017. The Russian Federation currently holds the 5th position in trade volumes that have culminated at 4,171 tons in 2017.

Good news for Kenyan farmers as global avocado prices double on high demand

Kenya Avocado Society recruiting farmers to plant the crop as demand soars

avocado selina wamuci

The second, third, and sixth major export markets for Kenya avocados are all in Europe. The Netherlands leads the pack with 10, 556 tons of the fruit from the 2017 statistics. France is the third biggest importer: its net volume stood at 10,423 tons in the same year. The United Kingdom and Spain close the top 7 with volumes that verged on 2,944 and 1,734 tons respectively in 2017.

As the main producers of avocado in Africa, Kenya and South Africa have had a bittersweet trading relationship. In 2010, South Africa banned the importation of avocados from Kenya, citing quality concerns. The ban lasted for close to a decade until a July 2018 revocation.

avocado stats africa

The resuming of trade has come as a blessing to many smallholder farmers in Kenya. By 2014 when the ban on avocado was still in force, the East African nation’s trade volume with its southern counterpart clocked at a high of $0.7bn (imports) and $327.7m of reciprocal trade (exports). The return of trade will also bring on board international buyers as importers will have more confidence to buy the now-endorsed Kenyan fruits.

According to John Oroko, CEO of Selina Wamucii, one of Kenya's fastest growing avocado exporters, it was only a matter of time before Kenya became the leading avocado exporter on the continent.

"Kenya has had a steady year on year growth since 2012 and despite facing a severe drought in 2017, managed to export a record over 50,000 tons. I have every reason to believe this year will be way better given that we had rains and the avocado sizes have increased significantly,” said Oroko.

“Of importance to note is that Russia and Hong Kong (a key gateway to mainland China) have had over 500 per cent market growth and these are very key markets for our avocados if the country is to maintain its lead,”

“The EU market is already a mature market for Kenya's avocados and significant growth can only be achieved with the nurturing of these new and strategic emerging markets for Kenyan avocados especially China and Russia. The future indeed looks very bright.”

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