Farmers count losses as diseases ravage coffee crop

Hopes of coffee farmers realising a bumper harvest have been shattered by extreme weather.

For three weeks, farmers in Mt Kenya, where most of the Arabica coffee is grown, have been watching the green berries expected to be picked in October, fall from branches.

The crop has been attacked by the coffee berry disease.

The disease, which usually appears during the rainy or chilly seasons, has been reported in Nyeri, Embu, Kirinyaga, Murang’a and Kiambu counties.

The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation has also alerted farmers on the possibility of a Solai-Elgon outbreak.

This disease is sporadic and is mainly confined in Nakuru and Trans Nzoia counties.

Kalro said the disease has been reported Nyeri, Kiambu, Kisii, Nandi and Murang'a counties.

Both coffee berry and Solai-Elgon can reduce yields significantly.

While the former destroys the plant after swellings on the leaves, buds flowers and young branches, Solai-Elgon causes the immature green berries to drop.

At the advent of the long rains in early March, farmers were hoping to get good yields.

The rains had come at the right time and the coffee trees were almost withering after a prolonged dry spell.

The bushes showed signs of a good harvest until the second week of June when the coffee berry disease struck.

In Nyeri, the devolved government says it expects production to fall by 20 to 25 per cent.

“The coffee berry disease has been reported throughout the county due to the weather,” Agriculture executive Henry Kinyua told the Sunday Nation by phone.

Farmers interviewed said the losses would be far more than the devolved government estimate.

In upper Mathira where coffee does well during the dry season, farmers say they expect more than 40 per cent drop in production.

“About 40 per cent of the crop is gone and we might lose more if this bad weather persists,” Gikanda Farmers Cooperative Society chairman Mukuha Chiera said.

In some parts of the county, farmers say they have lost their entire crop.

Mr Ndirangu Wahome, who delivers his beans to Chorong’i Coffee Factory near Nyeri town, weeks he has desperately been watching his entire crop being destroyed by the chilly weather in the last two weeks.

“I expected a good harvest since most of the trees were bending due to the weight of the berries. It is shocking to see some upright after dropping all their berries” the farmer told the Sunday Nation, adding that he would lose at least 80 per cent of his expected harvest.

Like other farmers, Mr Wahome is heaping blame on the chemicals he sprayed on the bushes to fight coffee berry disease. He says they were not effective.

However, Mr Kinyua said the county has not received complaints of defective chemicals from coffee growers.

The executive said the devolved government is training farmers on how to manage coffee berry disease.

“We are training them to stick to the recommended spray programmes and replace the old coffee varieties of SL34 and SL28 with Batian and Ruiru 11,” Mr Kinyua said.

“Grafting the latter with the former is also recommended”.

The county government is providing farmers with lime to enhance the nutrition of the plants and make them resistant diseases.