“Het komt zoals het gaat” (it will come as it goes)

Up until now, we have visited seven smallholder farmers of two different cooperatives and we have spoken to the senior field supervisor of an estate. What a huge difference between cooperatives and estates, we could not have imagined this when still in the Netherlands.

The rest of the week, we will visit three more smallholder farmers. This farmer lives in a world completely different from ours! Therefore we will try to sketch an image for you:

Farming is their life, some farmers have other activities apart from the coffee farming, but for most of them, coffee is their main business. The farmers we have spoken to wore fancy clothes although dirty, men were wearing pantaloons and women nice skirts. They all spoke English, but not all sufficient enough to understand everything, then our interpreter Regina translated it in Kikuyu, the language spoken in Nyeri. Each farmer made us feel very welcome and showed us how proud they were about having us in their home! Smallholder farmers have their house on their piece of land, usually quite small but all with a comfortable sitting room in which we could held the interview. In the sitting rooms they had a lot of posters, pictures and calendars of the president Kenyatta, the cabinet and one even had a poster of ‘the’ royal wedding (William and Kate). All had mobile phones, radios and apart from one farmer, they all had a television and often even a DVD-player. We have seen a lot of water tanks, collecting rainwater out of the gutters of the buildings, used for drinking and washing, but not for irrigation. Only one farmer used this water for irrigation, and at the same time for keeping fish…

The youngest (female) farmer we met was 43 years old, and the oldest (male) 85! He seemed very fit and alive for someone that age, he still manages his farm together with his wife and even takes care of their young grandson. The properties (farms) ranged from 0,5 acre to 3 acres. Farms are almost all inherited by the son(s) of the family. When there are multiple sons, the property is be divided into several pieces. This means that properties shrink each time when parents pass their work to their sons. The children of the farmers are pushed towards education and they are very proud of the fact that they are able to provide that education. Several times we were told that the money they receive from the coffee is used to pay the school fee. Money is for many farmers a big issue, since they receive the money earned with coffee after the auction of the beans. This is only once a year and can be up to 9 months after delivering coffee at the factory. The rest of the year they receive money from the other crops they cultivate, mostly maize, bananas, beans, Napier grass (food for the cow), macadamia, (sweet) potatoes, passion fruit and avocado. Cows and chickens are held as cattle, since cows produce milk and manure (good for the trees!) and chickens produce eggs.

Our interviews contain several tasks given to the farmer. They are asked to make two timelines, one of a regular day in their life and one about a whole year regarding cultivating coffee. This provides grip for the conversation and a logical order in asking questions. After the timelines we have a few other tasks, which we circulate per farmer since it is not possible ask the same level of questions to all farmers. At the end of the interview we used to ask if they have ever heard of certification. It appears that not many farmers know about certification, what it is, what it means for them as farmers, which benefits are attached to certification and if they themselves are certified or not. All farmers were keen on learning more about coffee farming! This was very interesting to see. Since we went to farmers of two different cooperatives and of six different factories, there was a large difference in received training. The farmers told us about organizations providing training to them: the agricultural officer, the Wanbugu farm, the factories and universities. They perceived these information channels as very trustworthy, because they see the results of these trainings in their own healthy coffee crop.

We still learn new things about coffee in particular every day. One very straightforward thing for example: The bigger the cherry, the better the quality of the coffee. Regina, who is also a coffee expert, was so impressed by the big and shiny cherries at one of the farms that she could not resist putting some of them in her pocket (although in the very end, she did put them in the basket for the farmer). On the same farm we had a very interesting interview setting: the plantation itself! While we all (including our driver and the guy of the factory who pointed us the direction of the farm) helped picking cherries (apparently you are supposed to help picking when being on the plantation), we asked the landlady all our questions. Once-in-a-lifetime experience!

The types of coffee trees that are planted on each farm differ a lot. Some of them only have (or plan to have) the Riuru 11 or Battiane that are least affected by pests and diseases, while others only have the traditional SL trees. The choice of which trees to cultivate mainly depends on the preferences of the farmer, some like spraying, some do not, and some are willing to spent money on planting new trees, some are not.

During the timeline exercise we found out that many smallholder farmers cannot draw an exact timeline of their coffee activities over a year. Every farmer has a global picture about what activities to carry out during the different months, but none of them could exactly give us an overview with different activities for every month. To know which chemicals to spray in what time of the year, the farmer can use a calendar with this information that is provided by the factory. During an interview with the supervisor of a big coffee estate, we found out that there really is a routine in different activities during the year, depending on the seasons. He also explained that during the long rain (around April) flowers appear, which turn into berries and during the short rain into cherries (late crop). The same will happen the other way around: flowers appear in October during the short rain, they will change into cherries during the long rains (early crop).

Note: berries are green, cherries are red, ripe and ready to be picked.

In one of our interviews we had a very interesting intervention: The phone of the farmer ringed, so he took a moment to read the text message he just received. Regina knew exactly what the message was about because she received the same message: it was a warning from the Nyeri Water and Sewerage Company ltd. that there will be a tap water shortage. If you are a member of the NWASCO (the National Water Supply and Sanitation Council), you will receive these messages. Finding out that such ways of information sharing is used in Kenya, was a new insight that we got coincidental. The farmer reacted a little laconic after asking what he would do now: “There is nothing to do about it, we just wait until the water comes”. This is an attitude that we have seen more often during the farm visits last week, also regarding a lack of rainfall after predicted rain in the weather forecasts (“I cannot do anything about it, I just pray”).

Weather information about water availability is the most important information for the farmers. They especially need to know when the rain is coming so they can prepare for it: to apply fertilizer, which can only be done when it is raining; and to do mulching, which has positive effects for the microclimate around the coffee trees.

So, lots of information we gathered during our interviews and observations! Conclusion: money comes first, rain is second.

A few firsts

Again, a blog with firsts…

 

We finally saw Mount Kenya! When visiting the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (DeKUT, kind of funny for the Dutchies) we entered the parking lot after our meeting, and wow, there it was. The mountain starts very flat and then all of the sudden it rises high in the air. The location of this university was beautiful again; we really took into questioning what the Kenyans would think about our campus.

And then, the field work part of our research started! On Friday we visited two farms of the Mutheka cooperative in Nyeri. We started at the factory Kamanyu, after which we visited one of their farms during the morning. In the afternoon we went to the Chorong’i factory and completed the day at one of their farms.

At the university we met Regina, a coffee expert and Q(-uality) grader who will accompany us while visiting the farms as our interpreter, for in case the farmers only speak Kiswahili or Kikuyu. She learned us about the multiple ways of brewing coffee: boiling, dripping, steeping and pressurizing. At the university they grow their own coffee and they process, package and sell it themselves as well. We drank one of the packages that arrived that day and brewed it through steeping, using the French press. The coffee was very nice!

Dan, of the division of research, technology management and community linkages helped us with his (positively) critical view on our research. At the end of the visits to the farmers, we would like to conduct a focus group with some farmers as well. This means having a group discussion with approximately five farmers at the same time, so that they can chip in on each other’s answers. This can help us in developing a solution for the problem together with them. Dan was very enthusiastic about this plan, so we hope we have time and the possibilities to arrange this as well. 

The information we are receiving from all the experts (companies but farmers as well) makes the main issue of our research more clear each time. If we are repeating some of the earlier findings in this blog, it is only because things have gotten even clearer for us.

What we noticed and learned most during the farm visits:

-          Both farmers we visited were around 60 years old, this confirms our literature and expert research.

-          The farmers were very welcoming to us, and one was even proud of the fact that we (as white researchers) were in his house.

-          They are very proud of Kenya, Kenyatta (the president) and of being a Kenyan that is cultivating coffee.

-          They own (smart)phones, televisions, radios and DVD-players. Note that it might be that we are only directed to the more wealthy farmers by the factories, but we were very surprised.

-          The non-availability of meteorological information; farmers do watch the news and weather predictions on television, listen to it on the radio and receive information from the factories, but this information is not accurate enough (highlighted by one of the farmers we spoke). If they want to receive more accurate information, they will have to request this at the meteorological station itself, but this rarely happens since the farmers simply do not know about this opportunity. Still the following questions arise: Is it even possible make long-term predications on rainfall periods? Is keeping track of micro climates more valuable than the climate of a very big area?
We think that we can come up with a combination of both, by putting the stations of TAHMO on the factory level of the cooperative.

-          The two farms we visited up until now, were both cultivating other (food) crops, like maize, bananas and macadamia nuts. They also owned cattle next to the coffee crops, like chickens and cows.

-          The smallholder farmers employ a maximum of two employees during the picking seasons.

-          One of the farmers did not know in which month what exactly should happen on his farm regarding the coffee. At the end of the interview we asked if he would prefer weather data/predictions or tasks that are based on these predictions, he answered he would prefer to receive the tasks to carry out.

-          As far as we have seen and heard from experts, most smallholder farmers do not use an irrigation system and thus have to fully rely on the rain.

These where our first findings, next week we have a busy schedule ahead of us. Each morning and each afternoon we have an appointment at a farm or with one of the managers, which means the evenings will be for finishing the documents and writing this blog J. If everything goes well, the week after we will try to do a focus group session. This means next week you can expect more detailed findings.

From berry to coffee

Apparently the rain we wrote about last time was a little bit more than expected: the Sunday Nation newspaper even wrote an entire page about the damages due to the water and the necessity of a power cut in order to prevent electrocutions. Happy morning news! (NOT)

The same newspaper also wrote an article about the coffee, tea and cocoa prices, which are expected to rise next year. This will bring a welcome relief to the Kenyan Farmers, but also for the total Kenyan economy.

Sunday evening, we finally got our third group member in Nairobi: Paulien arrived! The next day we spend on driving to Nyeri, a small town located close to Mount Kenya and hosting very good agricultural land for (among others) coffee plantations.

Catherine, our contact from CMS (Coffee Management Service), did a really great job in making a schedule for our first visits and introducing us to the management of one coffee estate and two coffee cooperations (Thank you, Catherine!). Both an estate and cooperation cultivate coffee, but an estate is a big coffee farm with many employees, while a cooperation is a society of many different smallholder farms, who work together.

On Teusday, we started our day with visiting Nyeri Hill Farm, the biggest estate in the region (for about 1400 hectares of which 340 planted with coffee trees). The company provided us a very nice drive on their ground: next to coffee trees, we saw lots of tea crop, some big trees providing shadow for the coffee and a whole community of houses, schools and even a hospital for the community. Since it is picking season right now, we saw a lot of pickers working on the grounds, separating the ripe, red berries from the trees. 

The second visit was to Mutheku Cooperative, a cooperative with one chairman on top. We had a very interesting discussion about problems regarding climate change that are encountered by the smallholders nowadays. The main question was: ‘How is it possible that the knowledge gained from our fathers is less usable nowadays?’ We talked about how we could implement our research outcomes in a product/service and we discussed the importance of the availability and accessibility of the weather and climate information for farmers.

The third and last meeting for this day was at the Thiriku Cooperative headquarter, a cooperative that is led by a board of five representatives of smallholders. We had a short introduction meeting, after which the board and the supervisor of the drying process showed us the processing of the berries: from smallholders bringing the berries to the headquarter where their harvest is weighted and captured, until the final storing of the dry beans. The tour was very fun, and at the same time helpful in understanding the process!

We gained a lot of insights that we have listed below.

The process of a coffee tree

1.     A tree is planted and maintained for three years (in this period, the tree does not produce any berries)

2.     After the rain season, the flowering starts and lasts for about six months

3.     The flowers will turn into berries in the last half of the flowering period

4.     The ripe, red berries are picked

5.     Old suckers (more than five years) are pruned, since these will not produce berries anymore. Due this pruning, new shoots will grow and these will produce berries after two years

This process takes place twice a year: one big season (after the big rain season) and one small season (after the small rain season).

The process of cultivating coffee in a cooperative

1.     Red berries are picked in the fields and brought to the factory

2.     In a second selection, less ripe, overripe and sick berries are excluded from the process

3.     A wet mill removes the skin of the berries

4.     The result, two beans per berry, are dried on drying beds outside

5.     A third selection (during the drying process) excludes the sick beans from the process

6.     The beans are transported to the market and sold

This process takes 14-21 days, depending on the weather. After this, another company takes care of the remaining steps:  

7.     A dry mill removes a second white skin from the final beans

8.     Finally the beans are roasted, now they are ready to brew a nice Kenyan coffee!

Note that there is a small difference in the process at an Estate. Most of the estates own their own dry mill, so only step 8 has to be carried out by the next party.

About climate change

During the literature research we did in the Netherlands, we already found out that Sub-Saharan Africa is getting warmer and that there will be more and unpredictable periods of rain.

When there is a big, unexpected and severe rain fall, the amount of berry diseases will increase, and furthermore, mature berries will fall down from the tree and thus cannot be used anymore.

A dry spell however, will lead to a decreasing production of coffee, since the flowers will be affected. Furthermore, smallholders need to borrow money from the bank to buy a specific fertilizer, which increases the production of coffee. But, if there is not enough rain, the fertilizer will not work, it will even ruin the crop! In this case, farmers will not apply the fertilizer and this will result in less production. Less production means less income, so the loan and interest cannot be paid back to the bank. New fertilizer cannot be bought, children cannot go to school anymore, there will be more illiteracy and also more criminality: a vicious circle with very bad outcomes.

If a coffee farm does not have an irrigation system (like most smallholders and estates), a difference in rainfall pattern very much influences the production of coffee.

Since the climate change also results in a higher temperature, the coffee trees need to grow higher on the hill (where it is colder). But at one time, the end of the hill is reached and the crop cannot be cultivated with the best possible temperatures anymore.

Exact climate data is not captured yet but people see the climate changing (the rain season now starts in October instead of September; years ago it was easy to produce 20kg coffee per bush, nowadays it is a struggle to get 10kg, etc.) but no one knows exactly how much the rainfall (in mm) or the sunshine (in hours) has changed and thus a direct relationship cannot be proved.

After these interesting visits we had some time left for some physical leisure. We went to visit the equator where we experienced the effect of magnetic fields on a water stream in real life. At this moment we are preparing to visit the Dedan Kimathi University of technology and the farmers themselves. We are looking forward to share the next findings with you, so we will keep you posted!

Coffee in Kenyan supermarkets

Today, our message will be a short one since it is our weekend as well. But as you can probably imagine, working on a research project will never take a real break.

Like today, we went to the local supermarket Nakumatt to buy our lunch. We passed the coffee section of the supermarket and there we were, checking all the packages whether they were selling certified coffee or not. As it turned out, after looking for five minutes we only found one certificating brand, a brand that was unknown to us. Apart from that, most of the coffee they sold was instant coffee.

While we were continuing our route to lunch, we again noticed something: a coffee stand. We asked an employee what it was; they were promoting coffee in the supermarket because a lot of people do still not know how coffee tastes. There even was a coffee machine present on the table, which is quite unusual as we learned, since coffee brewing machines are very expensive here.

Furthermore, the rain season has definitely started here! We experienced a lot of flooded roads last night, making the taxi driver turn back six times due to the high level of water.

The rain season has begun

The rain season has finally begun! Although we are not so sure whether to be happy with it or not. For the farmers we are, but for ourselves…

Wednesday we forgot to tell you about an interesting finding:

In the Netherlands, there are multiple websites on which you can check the weather and the amount of rainfall that is predicted*. After our presentation, we told the class that we often use that to check before going outside whether we need to bring an umbrella to the university, or what kind of clothes we need to wear.

We asked the classroom whether there is anything like that in Kenya. The answer that we got was a lot of noise and everyone started talking to each other in an enthusiastic way. So… no, something like that is not yet present in Kenya. We explained about the opportunities that such websites/apps will bring. For instance farmers could try to plan ahead. Of course, these websites just provide information that is based on a prediction, but it is something to hold on to.

We think this opportunity must be grasped.

So, what did we do the past 2 days? Yesterday, we went to CRF (Coffee Research Foundation, currently reorganizing into the Kenyan Agricultural and Lifestock Research Organization) and Solidaridad.  When our taxi was trying to transfer us from the first meeting to the second, we experienced a (for us) new problem In Nairobi: traffic. Since this transfer took place during lunch hour, everyone was trying to move from one place to another causing a lot of cars trying to cross each other without any order. In other words: Chaos! Eventually we arrived on the right place ‘only’ 30 minutes late. But as we learned earlier today, that is no problem at all, Hakuna Matata.

The most informative part of the day was our first walk on a real coffee farm. We saw, among other things, the different kinds of coffee trees, pickers doing their work, shade grown coffee and intercropping. It really helped us getting an idea of how things work on coffee farms. CRF even has its own weather station, to do research with.

Furthermore we had very interesting interviews with people from the two organizations we visited. On our way home the first rain of the season was falling, but it were only a few drops.

Today, on Friday, we had only one meeting. This was at SMS ltd. (Sustainable Management Services Limited), as the name already suggests this is a company providing services to create better management at the coffee farms in cooperatives. When we got back to the hotel, it started raining (big time) and it looked like the rain season had finally begun! At this moment the thunder and the grey sky make it look like it is not going to stop for the next few days, but we will see. As we have learned during our interviews the weather can be very unpredictable in Kenya. Well, time to experience this in real life.

Let us sum up the most interesting findings up until now:

Climate related problems:

·       Erratic rainfall. Farmers cannot predict when it will start raining. This change is hard to grasp, since the patterns are not shifting over time, but totally changing. This is not only the case for coffee farmers but also for farmers of many other crops. Because of this uncertainty they do not know when to start planting or harvesting.

·       Longer dry spells that come along with the erratic rainfalls form a problem too, because many crops need periods of rainfall lasting a few weeks after being planted. Dry spells can ruin the plants when they appear soon after planting.

·       Kenya is divided into only four meteorological regions. Because of this, farmers cannot receive area specific information on how the weather will look like on their farm.

General problems:

·       Most of the coffee farmers in Kenya are aged (60 years old on average). Some problems that come along with this age are conservativeness or unwillingness to adapt to changes younger people (researchers) suggest to them. A way of convincing these farmers is by proving that these suggestions really work, for example with a (chosen) leading farmer within a cluster of farmers.

·       Most coffee farms are led by men, but mainly women are the ones that work on them. This means that the men will receive the payment, which causes the women being less involved in the results of their work.

·       The farmers do not drink (their) coffee themselves. This makes it impossible for them to rate the quality of their own coffee, since they do not know that this really makes a difference. When they are aware of the value of this difference, they will put more energy in cultivating good quality coffee in order to receive more money for it.

Even if the farmers would be willing to drink coffee, it is too expensive for them to try. Coffee itself, but also the coffee machines are unaffordable for them.

·       The perception of coffee being a cash crop instead of a food crop makes coffee less popular for farmers. They will not immediately receive positive results of their investments in coffee, while for example if they would cultivate maize they immediately see food (or money) appearing after the harvest.

Well, apart from this information we learned a lot more this first week in Nairobi. The processing of this information will take a bit longer than writing this blog, so stay tuned!

*

www.weeronline.nl

www.buienradar.nl 

Butterflies in the stomach!

Today was a very exiting day with a lot of learning. It started with walking down the street in front of our hotel, which we had not seen in daylight and outside of the car before. This is Africa! Everywhere you look, something is happening: look to your right, a man is claying something with clay from underneath the paving. Look to your left, a woman is sewing outside with her sewing machine, while the five men are sitting next to her are watching and greeting us.

We started with a meeting with David, who used to work at GIZ (Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and now works as a consultant on climate change projects. His focus lays mainly on tea, but since our final product preferably has to be applicable on all crops in all countries of the Sub Saharan Africa, his view on climate change was very interesting and valuable. The interview was conducted at the Java house, not a bad working place at all! Well, except for the exploding tire producing a huge bang at the gas station next to us, making everybody jump up from their seat...

In the afternoon we went to the JKUAT (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology). After 45 minutes of browsing through the campus (which was beautiful, we could only wish for that many colourful flowers) we finally found the building where we needed to be. We were supposed to do a presentation for the chairman, a professor and a few students. The few students turned out to be 40 students of the mechanical and agricultural faculties. That did not increase the amount butterflies in our stomachs at all! The presentation was held in an interactive way, so the students could give their feedback on our project and could ask questions.

 According to us, the most important conclusions drawn from the interviews today are the following:

·       Coffee farmers are moving away from the monocrop, because it is not seen as affordable enough.

·       Farmers will need to create their own micro climate in order to increase their productivity. How will we, UTZ, TAHMO or anyone else convince them that this could be a profitable option? By proving it! Once they will have seen the results of creating this micro climate, they will believe it works but not before that. Seeing is believing.

·       Nowadays, all weather information is spread through i.a. radio stations and newspapers. This information is only a prediction of what could happen in general, not focussed on smaller regions of the country. The districts on which it is focused are too big. 
·       Phones are common in Kenya, also in the rural areas.

·       Selling crop insurances to farmers is a growing business. When a season has been bad for the farmers due to bad weather conditions, they can claim (a part) of the damage they suffered from it.

·       In Kenya there are multiple perceptions about farmers. For the youth farming is a unpopular of making a living. To deal with this perception there is a part about agribusiness in the newspapers in which young people explain about their ‘cool and rewarding’ farming experiences. Yet, their negative perception is not tackled yet.

·       If the farmers would drink their produced coffee themselves, they would be better able to recognise its quality. This could result in less distrust at the coffee auction.
Coffee is becoming a more common drink in Kenya, but currently it is mostly drunk as instant coffee.

·       An advice for our onsite research: the farmers are the experts! We want to learn from them, they are very important to our research.

·       Kenyans seem to perceive the European restrictions on chemicals as an action to put their production down, as if we are afraid of their growing economy. We should be aware that questions about this topic will arise during the remaining of our research.

Again, we thank you all for working together with us, we could use a good night's rest right now, so good night everybody!