B) MOST LIMITING CONSTRAINTS

  1. Except in recent years coffee prices has remained low and the cost of production could not equal to prices.
  2. High cost of fertilizers and chemicals while our original types of coffee trees eg SL28 SL 34 and k7 remained vulnerable to diseases like CBD and leaf rust
  3. Financial constraints to enable farmers training and education.
  4. Lack of modern technologies, to make work easier to safe farmers money
  5. Bad management, all these cap pled together result in bad weather and good soil management practices are lacking

C) STRATEGY TO INCREASE COFFEE PRODUCTIVITY

Rianjagi F.C.S is a single society which spilt from a giant society of kapingazi in 1997 and due to the challenges above production has remained low. But in the recent years production has risen from 150.000 to almost 1 million kg in the 2010/2011 season. For this to happen some strategic measures has been put in place

  1. We have subdivided our area of operation in 5 units and every unit is manned by one field committee member with specific duties to do e.g. visiting individual farmers to acertain good agricultural practices
  2. For purposes of training we have further sub-divided our area of operation into eleven villages and elected 24 promoter farmers each village has about 50 members managed by one promoter farmer.
  3. Our members are almost 50% men and 50% women and out of these more than 60% are youth of equal gender. There is a lot potential in the youth we are now in the process of organizing them into small groups of farming. The youth coffee farming groups.
  4. We are moving organic and we have identified an organic demonstration farm to train our farmers.
  5. We have one extension officer who has the experience of C.R.F and has been very helpful to our farmers and farms.
  6. We have put in place a nursery of Batiancoffee seedlings from C.R.F with a capacity of 10,000 and I intend to see this continue for a capple of years. Thisprocess will see our production rise steadily.
  7. I introduced the production as a C.D to our members with 3 songs one to act as our anthem another in praise of Rianjagi and another on how to conduct ourselves and lastly there is a documentary part this part will always remind us the need and the way to
  8. prune coffee
  9. Apply fertilizers as being demonstrated by our extension officer in charge of field and promoter farmers. This C.D is given to members at a low cost.
  10. we have introduced a coffee calendar given to our farmers at no cost
  11. we have a strategic plan in place and very soon I am organizing for a business plan
  12. the main objective is to raise our production from 1 million to 2.5 million kg in the next 3 years

C2) IDEAS FOR A SUPPORT PROGRAM (TRAINING PLANS, INPUT SUPPLY ETC)

ADOPTION OR EXTENSION STRATEGIES

Certification are vital programs in our societies to this end we have chosen fair trade certification. In our support program, ourfarmers, staff, the management committee, the field and promote farmers need trainings. Seminars and education programs to enhance farming. We have partnered with Deloite and coffee Holter as our support group.For inputs we partner with our marketing agent the S.M.S, Co-operative bank and the C.OD.F kity for finances.

D) IMPACT OF YOUR STRATEGIES TO INCREASE COFFEE PRODUCTIVITY

With more coffee production

  1. our gross income has risen from 9 m to about 50 million per year
  2. coffee quality has also improved such that our grades AA and AB have gone to over 70%
  3. coffee prices have also gone-up with a remarkable 1008USD of our AA last year and an average of more than 500 USD
  4. if this kind of trend continues the standard of living of our members is expected to change while these impressive prices has woken-up farmers and are going back to serious farming
  5. The society is now able to provide other services to the members e.g. providing regular advances to cater for school fees, medicine, food and other necessities before the crop is sold.

E) REPLICATION BY OTHERS ORGANIZATIONS/FARMERS

To a very big extent our strategies to increase coffee productivity can be used by other coffee farmers and organizations depending on how much we interact with one another, to share experiences. Forums that can bring together many societies need be emphasized with the aim of sharing experiences. Examples are forums organized by bodies like E.A.F.C.A inter African coffee organization, SCAA etc.Our practices can be implemented in other geographical areas and with a proper group of experts in a support program these ideas can be significantly scaled up.

Thank you

Albert mwaniki kinyugo

Chairman Rianjagi FCS