The Producers
In and around the town of Kiandai, in Kenya’s Kirinyaga county, around 750 smallhold farmers deliver their coffee cherries to the Thimu washing station at harvest time. They will typically have a few hundred coffee trees of mixed varieties, including the established classic Kenyan varieties of SL28 and SL34, as well as newer introductions of K7, Batian and Ruiru 11. Alongside coffee, most will have other crops grown for sale and sustenance like maize, potatoes and mangoes.
Once they deliver the harvested coffee cherries to the washing station the farmers receive a small payment up front, and once the coffee is sold they receive a second larger payment. It is important that the mill is well organised so that lots can be traced back to the growers responsible for providing the actual material. With the Baragwi FCS farmers can receive 85%, sometimes more, of the final sale price.
The Washing Station
Processing at Thimu is fairly typical for Kenya. Cherries are first hand sorted on tarps before they go into production. A 3-disc Agaarde depulping machine is used to take the skins off the cherries and does some work in grading the coffee. Fermentation occurs in concrete tanks, for anywhere between 18 and 36 hours depending on the weather, before fresh, clean water from the Kiringa river is used to fully wash the coffee. More water is used to soak the coffee which aids homogenisation and makes for even cleaner parchment coffee. The lots are dried in the sun on raised beds, being heaped up and covered over during the night.
The Farmers’ Co-operative Society
Established in 1953, the Baragwi Farmers’ Co-operative Society oversees not just the operations at Thimu, but at 11 other factories, including Muchagara which we have bought from over several seasons. Other washing stations operated by the FCS include Kariru, Karumandi, Kagongo, Guama, Kianjiru, Kianyaga, Kyanja, Gachami, Githiururi and Rwambiti. They have 16,892 registered members supplying these 12 factories with coffee cherries, and 137 staff employed to carry out logistics and run the washing stations, making them the largest FCS in Kenya.
As well as investing in producing high grade, specialty coffee the membership of the Baragwi F.C.S adhere to strong ethics which shape their methods of production. Amongst the 10 of their admirable guiding principles are a commitment to conserve the natural ecosystem, as well as aiding ecological restoration in critical areas and providing a refuge for native wildlife on their farms.
They also focus on conservation of soil and water resources at the farm and factory level, using organic matter to enrich the soil as well as preventing erosion and minimising the use of chemical products through informed intercropping.
