Macadamia Processors On Better Returns To Farmers

By ODP

The gov­ern­ment is ready to engage macadamia proces­sors and exporters if they are ready to offer farm­ers bet­ter pay, Deputy Pres­i­dent Rigathi Gach­agua has said.

Speak­ing when he opened the Agri­cul­tur­al Soci­ety of Kenya Mom­basa Inter­na­tion­al Show yes­ter­day, the Deputy Pres­i­dent said the gov­ern­ment is ready for a dis­cus­sion on min­i­mum returns before any action of stop­ping farm­ers from export­ing direct­ly.

“Macadamia proces­sors want us to stop farm­ers from export­ing raw prod­ucts of macadamia. The Ruto Admin­is­tra­tion has no prob­lem with that pro­vid­ed we sit down and agree on a min­i­mum return, which should not be below what the farm­ers are earn­ing today. If they are ami­able to that dis­cus­sion, we have agreed with the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture Dr Andrew Karan­ja to engage them as ear­ly as tomor­row,” he said.

The Deputy Pres­i­dent said the proces­sors must pay what the farm­ers are earn­ing now or more, between Sh100 and Sh150 per kilo­gramme.

Deputy Pres­i­dent said the farmer, irre­spec­tive of the sub­sec­tor is king, there­fore, there is no going back on tak­ing short term mea­sures to cush­ion them from exploita­tion.

On cof­fee, he said the gov­ern­ment is work­ing on com­pli­ance with the Euro­pean Union Defor­esta­tion (EUDR) by Decem­ber 30, 2024, to enable farm­ers con­tin­ue access­ing the Euro­pean mar­ket, Deputy Pres­i­dent Rigathi Gach­agua has said.

Mr Gach­agua said the EUDR rein­force the ongo­ing reforms in the Cof­fee Sub­sec­tor, more­so trace­abil­i­ty of the pro­duce from the farm to the cup of the con­sumer.

The EUDR require importers and exporters of cof­fee, tim­ber, palm oil, cocoa, rub­ber, among oth­ers, to car­ry out due dili­gence to show that these items were not sources from land where forests were cut down after Decem­ber 2020. It is part of the EU’s strat­e­gy of fight­ing Cli­mate Change through sus­tain­ing forests in coun­tries of ori­gin.

“The Gov­ern­ment agen­cies have the req­ui­site and suf­fi­cient data to set up a due dili­gence sys­tem. We have start­ed the process of ensur­ing our cof­fee farm­ers com­ply by Decem­ber 30, 2024 dead­line. The Gov­ern­ment has mobilised Min­istries, State Depart­ments and Agen­cies to form an Inter-Min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee to fast-track com­pli­ance with the EU mar­ket require­ments,” the Deputy Pres­i­dent said.

The EU imports more than 55% of Kenyan cof­fee. In the year 2022/2023, Kenya export­ed 48,000 MT and the coun­try aims at 60,000 MT in 2024/2025. With the sup­port of the ongo­ing reforms in the cof­fee sub­sec­tor, spear­head­ed by the Deputy Pres­i­dent, Kenya is work­ing to raise the export up to 102,000 by 2027.

“Towards this ini­tia­tive, the Gov­ern­ment has sup­port­ed farm­ers in four Coun­ties with 49,000 seedlings. For the Finan­cial year 2024/25, we have an addi­tion­al allo­ca­tion of KSh 3 Bil­lion for the Cof­fee Cher­ry Revolv­ing Fund and a fur­ther KSh2 Bil­lion for the cof­fee debt waivers, hence, alle­vi­at­ing cash­flow chal­lenges faced by our farm­ers,” he said insist­ing that the cof­fee tea, dairy, avo­ca­do, cot­ton, coconut, macadamia, and oth­er sub­sec­tor reforms will con­tin­ue until the farmer has more mon­ey in their pock­et.

The Deputy Pres­i­dent said the gov­ern­ment banks of tech­nol­o­gy to dri­ve sus­tain­able farm­ing for eco­nom­ic growth as unde­pinned by the Bot­tom-Up Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion agen­da.

“We are com­pelled to devise and adopt Cli­mate resilient tech­nolo­gies to sur­mount chal­lenges in the pro­duc­tion chain. The exhi­bi­tions here have pre­sent­ed the best inno­va­tions. We have iden­ti­fied poten­tial nascent ideas for incu­ba­tion and nur­tur­ing to matu­ri­ty and indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion, for the ben­e­fit of our farm­ers,” he said.

Present dur­ing the open­ing, includ­ed Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary for Agri­cul­ture and Live­stock Devel­op­ment Dr Andrew Karan­ja, PSs Dr. Paul Rono  Agri­cul­ture,  Cab­i­net Affairs, Idris Dako­ta (Cab­i­net Affairs) Aure­lia Rono (Par­lia­men­tary Affairs) Mom­basa Gov­er­nor Hon Abdull­swa­mad Shar­iff Nas­sir, and his Tai­ta Tave­ta coun­ter­part Andrew Mwadime, Jomvu MP  Badi Twal­ib, among oth­er high-lev­el dig­ni­taries from across the sec­tors.

The ASK fra­ter­ni­ty led by the Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Batram Mutho­ka were also present.