By Malachi Motano
Coffee stakeholders in Western Kenya now want Universities in the region to introduce courses related to coffee farming in universities in Western region as a way of boosting coffee farming.
According to Josephat Makhanu, Co-operatives Chairman in Bungoma County, coffee factories are faced with challenges due to low experts that can check on the quality of coffee, an issue that has contributed to farmers experiencing more loss when they take their coffee to the factory.
Makhanu said, “As we are putting pressure on the county government about coffee farming, we also want the national government to set measures to ensure that a coffee faculty is introduced in our universities.”
According to Makhanu, instead of our youths going to Dedan Kimathi University in Nyeri to get such education. It will be suitable to start such a course in Kibabii University, stating that it will be much helpful to coffee farmers because their produce will be checked and scrutinized well before they are paid, and this will also help to boost yields.
He says this will help because as they start planting more coffee, “We need coffee experts, we only have few people who have done such a course and in each factory, we need at least 11 experts to take over and deal with that work.”
