“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.