Article abstract

Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research

Research Article | Published April 2019 | Volume 7, Issue 4, pp. 47-54.

doi: https://doi.org/10.33495/jacr_v7i4.19.111

 

Improvement in coffee production and economic gains by the farmers through support of coffee cooperative societies in Kenya

 


 

 

Mugo, Harrison M.1*

Salasya, Beatrice2

Lubabali, Hudson A.1

Njeru, Dawson N.1

Minai, James M.1

 

Email Author

 

1. Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization – Coffee Research Institute, Box 4 – 00232, Ruiru, Kenya.
2. Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, Box 57811-00200, Nairobi, Kenya.





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Citation: Harrison MM, Beatrice S, Hudson AL, Dawson NN, James MM (2019). Improvement in coffee production and economic gains by the farmers through support of coffee cooperative societies in Kenya. J. Agric. Crop Res. 7(4): 47-54.

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 Abstract 


Kenya produces Arabica coffee that is exported as a premium coffee because of its high quality. The production in the Country declined in late 1980s to 2010 and has generally stagnated. The shortage of coffee seedlings for expansion and replanting in the traditional and new coffee growing areas has aggrevated the production problem. To mitigate this, Coffee Productivity Project (CPP) was initiated to support selected coffee farmers Cooperative Societies through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative to produce and avail the planting materials closer to the farmers. At the end of the project period, a social economic survery was conducted to assess the impact of the project. The study was conducted in eight (8) Farmers Cooperative Societies (FCS) in eight (8) coffee growing counties. A total of 241 farmers were interviewed. The data was collected using formal pre-tested questionnaire and analysed using IBM SPSS software version 15 where the quantitative statistics was applied. The results showed that production of coffee seedlings by the selected Cooperatives increased by 355%. On average, the number of coffee trees per farmer increased by 40% in the project area while the area planted with coffee increased by 35.4%. Overall, the average coffee cherry produced per farmer in the project area increased by 63%. The average pay out per kilogram of Cherry increased by 100% from Ksh 36.74 in year 2012/2013 to Ksh 73.64 in year 2016/2017. The findings during this study implied that, the support of the Cooperatives promoted the expansion of coffee farming in the project areas thus contributing to the improvement in coffee production, increased farmers’ earnings and improved livelihood.

Keywords  Coffee   seedlings   cooperative societies   coffee cherry   livelihood    

 

 

Copyright © 2019 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.

This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0

 

 

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