BAHATI ORGANIC COFFEE FARMERS
Though Coffee as a cash crop is a major foreign exchange earner in Kenya, its farming is still a myth in the minds of many farmers and is often regarded as a crop for the “rich” and/or the “elderly”. Whereas tea is the favorite beverage in almost every household, coffee is taken by not more than 1% of the populace. Those who go into coffee farming know very well that the market for their produce is not local but foreign markets in Europe, America, Asia, and others.
KENYAN COFFEE
Coffee is one of those products that left a scar in Kenyan history. Some from the Boomers generation to Millennials clearly understand the wounds and trauma coffee brought their communities.
Coffee in Kenya can be traced back to 1893 when John Patterson, a Scottish missionary, imported the French Bourbon Coffee from Brazil. The British decided to bring the crop to East Africa after their primary sources in Ceylon suffered a disastrous attack from coffee disease.
Even at that time, the chains of colonialism had grasped our borders. We had to source coffee all the way from Brazil even though the two most popular coffee varieties come from our next-door neighbors: Arabica from Ethiopia, Robusta from Uganda.
About Bahati Coffee Growers
We are a community based organization
Registered in February 2022 under the MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND SOCIAL PROTECTION, STATE DEPARTMENT FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, Nakuru North Sub County, NAKURU COUNTY, KENYA under certificate No. 06312.
Location
We are located in the greater Bahati region with some members spread as far as Subukia constituency. For farmers who may be interested in our model of farming, we have a demo farm in Kabatini, Nakuru County. You can reach out to our officials for a walk down the farm.
The CBO brings together farmers of all age group with a common agenda of coffee farming and particularly high-value coffee farming.
The group has 30 primary members with varying sizes of land and hence coffee bushes. The actual membership now stands at 40.
What is Coffee?
By now, you have a basic understanding of what coffee means to us Kenyans.
What you may not know is the growth potential. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
That question could result in a myriad of answers from different people. For some, coffee is but a memory, a painful one for that as we’ve seen. For others, coffee means morning glory. Others live, breathe, eat, and talk coffee. For others still, coffee is comparable to black gold.
We’ll follow a scientific and empirical approach to answer that question to avoid bias.
Simply put, coffee is one of the world’s leading cash crops. The brewed drink is the result of roasting beans or the seeds from Coffea genus berries. The berries were supposedly discovered by an Arab goatherd who became amused after his herd’s erratic behavior after consuming some berries back in 850 CE. The goatherd himself became exhilarated after sampling the product. That said, the Islamic community would outlaw the plant, terming it as “intoxicating.”
Coffee made its way into Europe around the 16th-Century, and by the 17th-Century, coffeehouses were a common sight in the streets of Britain and America.
Vision
Our vision is of a community that pursues its God-given rights and potential to better its living standard without compromising our environment and natural order of creation.
Mission
Adopting, Practicing and Influencing farming practices that assure high-value income and thereby confront and tackle the struggles of low income workers and also bring about stability to the elderly in our families.
Strategy
- Recruitment of more farmers into our group and increasing acreage under coffee by 10 acres every year.
- Training all our group members on best farming practices.
- Sponsoring of demo farms in primary schools for training and teaching purposes.
- Sponsoring of demo farms in churches for training purposes.
- From coffee proceeds, buying of more land and putting the same under coffee.
- Observing strict discipline in our farming to ensure product sanctity is not compromised.
- Sponsoring coffee farming to the differently-abled people especially those who have land to use for this purpose.
- Organize training for our farm workers, both internal and external training.