Coffee as one of the major industrial crops produced in Kenya
Coffee is one of the major industrial crops produced in Kenya. It is the fifth largest foreign exchange earner after tourism, tea, horticulture and diaspora remittances. Coffee is the mainstay of about 800,000 households mostly rural. In the 70s and 80s, coffee was regarded as the ‘black gold’ because it raked in millions of shillings for the farmers. Kenya was then top player in the global market and the high-quality coffee from Kenya was highly sought after to blend coffees from other countries.
Over the years the coffee sector has declined significantly, and the farmers no longer reap the potential benefits of coffee farming. In December 2019, President Uhuru Kenya appointed former Nyeri Agriculture CEC Henry Gichuhi Kinyua as the Chairman of the New KPCU Board. Mr. Kinyua is an Alumni of the University of Nairobi, Faculty of Agriculture and the current Head of Digital Green (East Africa Region). Mr. Kinyua was invited as a Guest Lecturer during one of the class sessions of Industrial Crops (ACS 309/AEB 201) which is offered to 2nd year BSc Agribusiness students and 3rd year BSc Agriculture (Crop Science Option) students. The guest lecture session was held on 30th January 2020 from 9.00 to 11 am. The lecture was open to other students and lecturers from the Faculty of Agriculture.
At the end of his presentation, there was an open forum for discussion where the students learnt a lot regarding opportunitiesin the Coffee sector and the place of digitization. The students were enlightened on how they can apply the knowledge and skills gained from class to address some of the challenges in the coffee sector.
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