Nancy Njeri lugs a sack of fresh coffee berries to a hilltop factory from her small farm, which produces one of Kenya’s main cash crops yet earns barely enough for her family of seven children.
“We are toiling hard and the coffee does not give us good returns,” she said, after reaching the processing plant where the berries from her 200 coffee trees are de-husked and the extracted beans are graded and dried ready for roasting.
On big estates, one tree can produce 10-15 kg of coffee berries a year using fertilisers and other chemicals. But these are too costly for Njeri and other small-scale farmers. Their trees on the small plots in Kirinyaga County produce just 3-5 kg.
Read More At Reuters.
