Nestlé yesterday celebrated the international coffee day with a reiteration of their commitment to help restore the glory of Kenyan coffee. This is through continued support and training of existing and potential farmers through the Nescafe Plan programme.
The Nescafe Plan is geared towards improving productivity and quality of the coffee beans as well as encouraging more women and youth to participate in farming of the crop. Since it started back in 2011, the programme has been able to reach over 40,000 coffee farmers drawn from 12 Farmers’ Cooperative Societies in Eastern and Central Kenya. The company has so far spent over Ksh. 80 Million and promises to invest more as it plans to expand the programme to coffee farming areas in Western and Rift Valley.
Speaking during a visit to coffee farmers in Murang’a County, Nestlé’s Regional Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Head, Mrs. Judy Mwangi had this to say, “The Nescafé Plan programme aims to enlighten farmers on good agricultural practices and good processing practices including certification and 4C (Common Code for Coffee Community) verification, increasing the quality and quantity of the coffee they produce; promoting the responsible farming and production, and empower women and young people to become leaders in the coffee sector.”
So far farmers on the Nescafe Plan have seen production rise by more than 100 percent with coffee tree producing upto 10 Kgs of berries as compared to the earlier average of 2.5 Kgs per tree before the launch of the programme. Also over 6,000 women have become directly involved in coffee farming.
Globally, Nestlé plans to spend about Ksh. 36 Billion in the Nescafé Plan up to 2020. Nestlé has been buying coffee from Kenya for over 40 years for the manufacture of its Nescafé, Dolce Gusto, Zoégas and Nespresso brands and the Nescafé Plan programme ensures that Nestlé gets required supply for the brands.