Nandi County has stepped up efforts to revive coffee farming through new cooperative and marketing structures aimed at empowering farmers and boosting earnings.
The county has formed the Nandi Coffee Cooperative Union (NCCU), established a farmers’ brokerage company, and set up a farmer-owned coffee factory to streamline marketing. Officials say the reforms are designed to give farmers direct control over production, processing and sales while cutting out middlemen.
The cooperative reforms are being supported by other initiatives to restore the sector. The county will distribute more than two million coffee seedlings this year, according to Agriculture and Cooperative Development CECM Dr. Kiplimo Lagat. Farmers are also being mapped, registered and trained to improve yields across the southern coffee belt.
Women have been placed at the centre of the revival through the ‘Kahawa na Mama’ programme, which has distributed more than 650,000 certified Batian and Ruiru 11 seedlings since 2023. Beneficiaries in self-help groups such as Mogobich Progressive and Kapng’etuny Women have revived abandoned estates and diversified incomes by intercropping coffee with avocado.
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To strengthen resilience in landslide-prone areas, the county has committed to constructing 40 kilometres of furrows in Kapchoria and Tindiret wards. Investments are also being made in new pulping lines, solar dryers, and the training of 60 coffee-focused extension officers by 2026.
At the national level, the Coffee Cherry Advance Revolving Fund has been boosted with Sh6.7 billion, raising advance payments to Sh80 per kilo from Sh20. The increase has restored farmer confidence, curbed exploitation and attracted producers back to coffee.
The combined county and national interventions are transforming coffee farming in Nandi, with cooperatives and unions anchoring a sector once in decline but now on a path to recovery.
By Mercy Kokwon
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