The Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) postponed this week’s trading on the shortage of supplies.
The main crop season that has been sustaining the market since last year November has come to an end, forcing the auction to take a break early.
Kenya has been promoting the growing of coffee in areas that have not been planting the crop, especially in western Kenya to boost production that has been dwindling over the years.
The Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) postponed this week’s trading on the shortage of supplies.
The auction, which is set to break for a month starting May, has been characterised by a shortage of quality beans for trading in the last couple of weeks.
The main auction is normally conducted on Tuesday every week but NCE had to skip this week as there were no supplies in the market.
“We did not have the auction this week as there were no supplies,” said NCE chief executive officer Daniel Mbithi.
The main crop season that has been sustaining the market since last year November has come to an end, forcing the auction to take a break early as it awaits the crop from eastern and western parts of the country when it resumes in June.
The auction normally goes on recess around June.
Kenya has been promoting the growing of coffee in areas that have not been planting the crop, especially in western Kenya to boost production that has been dwindling over the years.
The Coffee Directorate has been giving out incentives such as seedlings and cheap loans to woo farmers.
Kenya’s coffee production has significantly dropped when compared with her peers in the region with Uganda, which was at par with the country in the previous years now widening the gap.
From the early 1990s to the 2010/11 crop year, the area under coffee has declined by 35 percent from 170,000 hectares to 109, 795 hectares as farmers abandoned the crop.
Kenya’s top grades are normally in high demand in the world market.
The country has one of the best coffees in the world that is highly sought after by roasters for blending with others of low quality from other regions.
