Coffee pulping cost effective way for smallholder farmers to raise earnings

Kenya’s cof­fee pro­duc­tion and yields in­creased in 2019 fol­low­ing the gov­ern­ment and counties’ dis­tri­bu­tion of free tree seed­lings. But the biggest cause of farm­ers’ flight from cof­fee has been prices too low for small­hold­ers’ sur­vival. However, value ad­di­tion, by pro­cessing beans on the farm, can lift the value of small-hold cof­fee crops six-fold.

In 2014, The Na­tion cited cof­fee farmer Grace Mwangi as pro­cessing the beans from 8 acres and earn­ing over Sh30,000 per 50kg com­pared with little more than Sh5,000 for 50kg of raw beans. The kind of cof­fee pulper Grace was using can be bought for as little as Sh100,000, al­though the price de­pends on its size. But this kind of pri­cing makes cof­fee pulp­ing an up­grade that pays for it­self rap­idly.

Re­lated News: Cof­fee fund launches pre-crop fin­ance for small­hold­ers

Ac­cord­ing to the 2020 Eco­nomic Sur­vey the av­er­age cof­fee yield in 2019 was 347 kgs per hec­tare, mean­ing that a single hec­tare’s crop would gen­er­ate an extra Sh175,000 in just one sea­son through being pro­cessed on the farm, cov­er­ing the cost of a pulper with just one crop.

Below are the con­tacts and prices being offered by some of the coun­try’s lead­ing sup­pli­ers of cof­fee pulp ma­chines:

Mod­tec En­gin­eer­ing Kenya

Mod­els: Jua Kali

Price: Sh100,000 to Sh450,000, com­plete unit cof­fee pulp­ing ma­chine and yearly ser­vices,

Fea­tures: High speed, single and double disk, manual, and elec­trical

Con­tact: 0739211820

Cof­fee Ag­ri­work

Mod­els: loc­ally made

Price: Sh120,000 – Sh180,000

Fea­tures: The primary unit has a ca­pa­city of 1,200KGS/HR of cof­fee cherry. Vari­ous model have up-to 5,000KG/HR of cof­fee cherry. Comes with either en­gine or elec­tric mo­tors. Uses pet­rol or elec­tri­city.

Con­tacts: info@​cal-ea.​com

P.O. Box 64548-00620, Nairobi, Kenya

0724738959, 0731803913

McKin­non Ma­chines Kenya

Model: McKin­non from India

Price: Sh130,000 – Sh6m de­pend­ing on ca­pa­city

Fea­tures: Min disk, En­gine Motor, and manual

Con­tacts: 0722957051, 0733957138

Mar­ina Ma­chiner­ies (K) Ltd.

Mod­els: Mar­ina

Price: Sh175,000 – Sh300,000

Fea­tures: Multi disks

Con­tacts: sales@​marinakenya.​com

020541785, 020553272, 020556685

0726155855, 0733635172, 0722857072

Waynays Africa Ltd

Mod­els: Pen­a­gos from Colom­bia

Price: Sh200,000 – Sh600,000

Fea­tures: Single face Motor

Con­tacts: info@​waynaysafrica.​co.​ke

P.O. Box 7556-01000 Thika

0721202623, 0732922523.

Bewa Plaza, Muindi Mbingu, Thika Town.

Re­lated News: Baringo farm­ers eye ex­port mar­ket with 1.2 tonnes ca­pa­city cof­fee milling plant