Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has appointed Charles Mutwiri aka Mkarimu as the director of the New Kenya Planters Cooperative Union due to his extraordinary work towards coffee farming.
Mkarimu abandoned formal employment to concentrate on coffee farming.
During the Coffee Stakeholder Conference, Gachagua narrated to the delegates how he was impressed, puzzled and inspired by Mkarimu's resilience and hard work.
"This coffee story is a good story if we remove the cartel nuisance from it, this is the most beautiful story of this conference," Gachagua said.
The coffee farmer has been teaching other farmers about good production practices and also runs a nursery from which he sells the coffee seedlings to other farmers.
He inherited 150 coffee bushes from his father in the early 1980s and has since grown to be one of the most successful farmers in Meru County.
He has expanded his coffee farm from less than one acre to over 30 acres at his home and leased pieces of land in the neighbourhood.
Beyond training others, he had nurtured Nixon Mukiri, a former employee of one of the universities in the country.
Mkarimu, who trains groups of farmers at his farm and in field visits, took Gachagua on a tour of the farm and emphasized why he has been in coffee farming for close to 40 years.
“I am a teacher of hundreds of farmers across the country. I have gained skills in crop husbandry because of my experience and research. I have never been formally employed, but I am leading a comfortable life with my family,” said the humble farmer.
As the Deputy President enjoyed the cup of coffee, he sought to understand more about the resilience of the farmer.
“I started pulping coffee with a hand machine of Sh100. This was small. But nothing is small at the end of the day; everything counts. That is how I have been able to buy a pulping machine of more than Sh2 million for timely processing of the cherry,” Mkarimu said.
In the engagement of about one hour at his mansion built from coffee proceeds, Mkarimu sat next to the DP explaining how he has maintained and even developed an improved high-yielding variety from the SL28 and SL 34 Arabica of the Coffee at his nurseries for transplanting and nurturing.
“On average, farmers in Kenya produce about 2kgs per tree of coffee per year. But I have managed to produce between 30kg and 35kg from each bush in the two seasons of harvest in a year,” he said.
“Coffee is a lucrative business. I am ready to be one of your student farmers. I have five acres of land on which I have been struggling with establishing a coffee farm.”
His son who is at university, also wants to graduate and join his father in coffee farming.
The farmer appreciated the efforts of reforming the coffee subsector adding that the earnings will triple.
