CMA licenses 14 farmers-based coffee brokerage companies

Coffee farmers in Kirinyaga are heavy with expectations of a good reap after the Capital Markets Authority licensed Kirinyaga Slopes Coffee Brokerage Company limited as a coffee broker.

This consequently allowed 14 cooperative societies under Kirinyaga County Cooperative Union to sell their coffee directly to buyers at the Nairobi Coffee auction market.

Welcoming the move, Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango, who is also the chair of the Agriculture Committee at the Senate, said the farmers in his county are about to experience the benefits of reforms in the coffee subsector as envisioned in the proposed changes in marketing and sale stages of the product.

Kamau adds, “Yes! Despite all we have gone through we finally have it. We shall sell our own coffee, brokers out!”

While applauding the move, CMA chairman Wycliffe Shamiah said, “The momentum of the reform agenda needs to be sustained to ensure full implementation of the Capital Markets regulations in relation to coffee changes”

According to the Capital Markets Authority, 14 coffee brokerage companies ran by farmers through cooperative societies across the country have so far been registered after the purge to clear off what the government termed as rogue marketers and brokers who feasted on farmers’ sweat and blood.