US child labour claims threaten Kenya’s exports

Players in the local tea industry have forecast high prices for Kenyan tea as buyers move to plug a 100 million kilogramme deficit globally.

The coffee sector is grappling with organisational challenges and a steady onslaught from the specialty coffee fad under which child labour is a key factor in attracting the more sensitive European and American markets.

The Nairobi Coffee Exchange reported that Kenya’s average coffee price rose an average 4.4 per cent in September Auctions—which saw a decline in the supplies of the beans amid strong demand.

The crop sold at an average $178.17 for a 50-kilogramme (110-pound) bag, up from $170.58 traded in August.

The Coffee Board said in early October that the crop earned Kenya Sh10.7 billion in the 2008-2009 trading period up from Sh9.7 billion in the previous period.

Ethiopia on Wednesday announced plans to move the trade in its specialty coffee to an Addis Ababa-based commodities exchange instead of the current channel of selling at auctions overseas.

Mr Eleni Gebre-Madhin, the chief executive at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), said up to 30 per cent of the country’s produce is classified as specialty beans but that higher prices for the fine coffees were not trickling down to farmers.

Ethiopia, Africa’s biggest producer with an annual average output of 330,000 tonnes, has opened talks with key players in the global specialty coffee industry on how best to handle the trading of premium brands.

It expects a bumper harvest of between 20 and 30 per cent above the usual crop this year.

Ethiopian advantage

The child labour cloud hanging over Kenya’s produce could swing to Ethiopia’s advantage in securing the emerging market.

“As a nation and as a member of the global community, we reject the proposition that it is acceptable to pursue economic gain through the forced labour of other human beings or the exploitation of children in the work place” says US secretary of Labour Hilda Solis.

Even though Kenya has put in place a process to curtail child labour including ratifying Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in 2001 and Convention 138 on the Employment of Children in 1973, the problem persists in farms across the country.

The Economic Survey 2009 says: “Results confirm that there exists a large number of children working in various sectors of the Kenyan economy instead of pursuing activities that would yield long-term benefits to the individual child and the nation at large. Agriculture and fisheries remain the dominant employer of children.”

Sugar cane growers in Nyanza say the use of children to till or harvest sugar cane farms is common.