K20mil price support funds going to growers: Official

PRICE support funds for coffee farmers would be paid directly to them through existing buying points in districts and provinces, according to the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC).
Acting chief executive officer Charles Dambui said there had been queries regarding the funding of K20 million for price support by the Government to commodity boards.
During the recent launching of the agriculture medium-term plan (2020-2022), heads of commodity boards received their share of the K20 million price stabilisation fund.
The CIC received K6mil of the K20mil funding which would assist organised grower groups.
“The support will be driven through cooperatives, grower groups and aggregates (partnerships) as a requirement in the national coffee development roadmap 2020-2030 and CIC strategic business plan 2020-2024,” Dambui said.
The price assistance on prevailing coffee price was to re-ignite the interest of coffee growers to increase production and consistently produce quality coffee which fetch premium prices.
Dambui said past government policies had failed the industry and the CIC was now restructuring the organisation to address specific needs of the industry.
He said the industry had many players and called for productive partnership arrangements to address issues and challenges faced by the industry.