Kenya NKG Bloom Nguvu comes from a handful of cooperatives in central Kenya whose members are enrolled in NKG Bloom. Their coffee is grown on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares mountain range in loamy clay soil. Cooperatives encourage their producer members to pick only the ripest cherries, which are sorted before being pulped. (Instead of being discarded, pulp waste is used to produce fertilizer.)

Parchment is fermented overnight before being washed and graded into P1, P2, P3 and P lights and pods. Subsequently, the parchment is dried on raised tables for 8 to 14 days.

Six efforts comprise the service package offered through NKG Bloom in Kenya.

First, producers have access to a trained technical services team, or Field Service Unit (FSU). Among the tools deployed by the FSU are soil scanners that provide immediate results, accompanied by fertilizer recommendations based on local availability.

Second, although all cooperatives involved in NKG Bloom are helped to meet baseline social and environmental criteria, cooperatives are supported in meeting additional sustainability and certification goals (which often means receiving additional premiums for their coffee).

Third is improvements to factories’ infrastructure, for example updating washing channels with tiled sides.

Fourth are short term, medium term and long-term financing offers to farmers, the importance of which cannot be overstated. Fifth is increased access to inputs and seedlings, including the establishment of nurseries for coffee and diversification crops to help with food security. And finally, the sixth piece is a digital management system. This includes inventory and transaction software that can be accessed from mobile devices, which gives producers instant and accurate information to make decisions and run efficient operations.

When Nicholas Kabare, manager of Tropical’s Farmers Services Unit, was asked he replied, “I’m excited that within the next two or three years the cooperatives we’re working with will be able to increase their production by 50 percent, if not double it — just by making sure they have the right trainings and making sure they’re following the agronomic trainings the way they’re supposed to be done.”

Light Roast

Kenya