Nairobi — A vicious war is shaping up between commercial coffee millers over contracts to mill some 60,000 metric tonnes of coffee expected to be produced this season.

The fight has also sucked in farmers and the management of their societies resulting in growers going against resolutions they themselves passed in annual general meetings on appointment of millers.

In situations where millers cannot impose themselves on management officials, they go straight to farmers with promises of better pay.

Farmers targeted by the well-to-do millers are small scale. Poverty levels in this cadre of farmers does not help the situation either as it makes them easy targets for the moneyed millers.

The companies are also taking advantage of confusion in the industry over who between farmers and their co-operative society officials has the mandate to award milling and marketing contracts.

A circular issued last year by the Commissioner of Co-operatives Mr Fanuel Odhiambo directed that management officials be responsible for awarding milling contracts as opposed to farmers.

The issue has also brought to the fore a conflict between the industry regulator Coffee Board of Kenya and the Ministry of Co-operative Development and Marketing.

The board is opposed to the commissioner's circular and wants the one issued in the 1990s which gives farmers at the factory level - through their annual or special general meetings - the power to pick millers reinstated.

The board says the circular was political and was purposely intended to help the struggling Kenya Planters Co-operative Union KPCU) regain its foothold in the industry following liberalisation.

"The position of the board is that factories should be the ones to appoint their millers and marketers. The impression of the circular is that the society's committee can appoint millers without reference to the factories," the board's Mt Kenya regional manager Mr Richard Wahome said.

Mr Odhiambo says his directive is not to blame for the confusion being witnessed in farmers' meetings. The circular, he says, gives room for inclusion of members in the appointment of the millers.

"There is an agreement that it is the committee of a society that should appoint a miller for purposes of accountability and transparency, but we encourage them to seek concurrence whenever there is a dispute," Mr Odhiambo said.

Not enforced

KPCU supports the circular saying a society's committee would be responsible if anything goes wrong.

They want Mr Odhiambo's directive, which they claim has never been enforced, to be implemented to restore sanity in coffee production.

A director Mr Maina Ndugire attributes the fight over contracts to corruption by unscrupulous millers.

To drive his point home, he points to the disparity between last years value of the local coffee that pegged at Sh10.5 billion though it was insured at Sh30 billion.

"This shows millers and marketers have access to a lot of money because they do not reveal to farmers the true value of their coffee. They are using the same money to bribe everybody to win such contracts.

Since KPCU does not have such kind of money to compete with such millers mostly foreigners, we can only watch as corruption goes on," said Mr Ndugire.

Many players

He faults the government for allowing so many players into the industry at a time when production is at an all time low.

Harvests have shrunk from a high of 130,000 metric tonnes in 1989 to a low of 42,000 last year due to a myriad of factors. The director says there was no need to liberalise before boosting production.

On average, milling and handling a tonne of coffee parchment costs about Sh4,810.

That some millers are ready to do anything including playing dirty to get a share of the pie, is no longer a secret especially now that production is lower than the millers' capacity.