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{
    "id": 1472457,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1472457/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 153,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John K. Mutunga",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We cannot miss out in comparing coffee in Kenya and other countries and sectors. Kenya's position on coffee globally is very low. The coffee sector continues to be a vital part of the country's economy, yet we have not been able to capture our market. We lost our quota in the world market. Kenya was exporting more than 120,000 metric tonnes of coffee, but we lost that quota because of mismanagement of factories and over-bearance of costs on farmers. We lag behind Uganda and our neighbour Ethiopia in terms of coffee processing and the turnaround amounts. In terms of productivity, as I said earlier, as a country, we are only able to realise two kilogrammes on a small-scale basis and four kilos on a large-scale production, while countries in our neighbourhood are realising more. This is something we need to look at, and it is a mischief that has been cured through this Bill. Hon. Deputy Speaker, if you look at market access, unlike Kenya where smallholder farmers have limited access to the coffee exchange, farmers in other countries are able to access their coffee exchange platforms. That is something that needs to be looked into. When it comes to variety development in terms of crop development, production of varieties through research, coffee research is domiciled at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation as one of the research institutes. This is a specialised entity which should be reporting to a specific board to deal with issues of productivity in terms of coming up with better varieties which are suited to a particular climate. This Bill has come up to cure that particular mischief as well. The donor dependency on the research institution, especially the Coffee Research Institute, ends up messing up or shifting the agenda. The agenda is influenced in the negative. It does not give us what we need. All these issues have been brought up by the abolition of the Coffee Research Levy, which was around 2 per cent of the coffee sold in 2016. That levy which was supporting our research institution to come up with better varieties like SL-28, SL-34, K- 7, Ruiru11 and others, was abolished. We lost about 50 per cent of the amount of money meant for coffee production and productivity research. The research institute does not only produce better coffee varieties, but it goes further to innovate technological development for coffee production. It comes up with innovations and management practices. These management practices are transferred to the farmers so that they can deliver a better crop in the sector. Hon. Deputy Speaker, let me just highlight a few issues in the Bill. The current status is such that coffee is managed under the AFA as one of the directorates. The AFA has been managing crop development, promotion, regulation of the production and marketing of coffee. This Bill comes in with very specific objectives. One of the objectives is to promote a globally competitive coffee industry by making sure that the Kenyan coffee is globally competitive. It also purposes to provide a framework for the registration and licencing of various players within the coffee sector. The licencing and registration is very well captured in the Bill. It also comes in to delineate the roles of the national Government, county governments, regulatory institutions and research institutes. We have specifically identified the coffee research institute and transformed it into a coffee research and training institute. It is going to be a coffee research and training institute because it will be conducting training on technologies, innovations and management practices so that our farmers can get better varieties to produce based on their agroecology and sizes of their farms. We need to intensify on productivity so as to get better production. There is a specific objective to promote evidence-based coffee research and the delivery of extension services towards development of the coffee sector. This is in terms of production of technologies, innovations and management practices. The final objective is to provide a framework for the establishment of the Coffee Development Levy. The levy will be established to basically look at how to support research, regulatory and marketing function in coffee. One of the things we have not done well in this The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}