Business Daily (Nairobi)
Allan Odhiambo
17 August 2007
Farmers may soon enjoy premium earnings and better access to markets abroad as the Government moved to have in place a legal framework allowing them to identify geographical origin of their produce and special traits.
The Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) has published a draft Geographical Indications Bill 2007 that would guide players on how to maximise the concept's potential.
According to trade experts, Geographical Indications (GIs) identifies goods that originate from a particular place or country where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of that goods is essentially attributable to its geographical point of origin.
The indications may be made in form of a word or symbol.
"This concept is vital in trade because that distinctive trait of the product attracts an extra value in the market in that it would be unique," Prof Otieno Odek, the chief executive office at KIPI told Business Daily.
Kenya currently has no legal framework for GIs even though efforts are being made in the coffee and tea industry to have products marketed abroad through the concept.
The move is in line with the provisions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
The void in GIs has led to a situation where high quality Kenyan coffee and tea is arbitrarily taken for blending with others from different parts of the world and later sold at higher prices.
In the coffee industry, producers hard pressed by poor earnings are rooting to shift from the dominant system of marketing based on grades of beans in which the product is cupped for quality and sorted according the size of the beans.
A leading player in the industry, Kenya Planters Co-operative Union (KPCU) plans to introduce GIs, in which coffee originating from Nyeri and Kirinyaga would be sold as "Mt Kenya AA", while consignments from Kisii area would go out as "Mara".
Coffee from Machakos would be selling as "Blue Mountain" and produce from Murang'a, Maragwa and Thika would sell as "Aberdare".
Apart from coffee and tea, KIPI says a host of other products such as Kangeta miraa, Meru potato, Kikuyu grass, mangoes from Asembo and Mombasa, bananas from Murang'a and Kisii, the Kenyan kiondo , the Molo lamb and Kisii soapstone have a potential to benefit from extensions of the GIs concept.
Prof Odek, however, warns that the adoption of the concept may not be easily achieved unless producers seeking to register their GIs provided scientific proof.
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