Name: John

Occupation: A coffee farmer and a  (Trainer of Trainers) TOT,

I started farming coffee in the year 2020 after the death of my dad in the year 2019, who was the proprietor of our coffee farm of 300 bushes. My mum was unable to manage all trees and thus she allocated my brother and I 100 trees each, by then the production per tree was about 2 Kgs per stem.

There was a need to increase the production to the maximum. I started rehabilitating my portion and for my mum and by the end of that season I got 475 kg which was 4.75 kgs per stem. Since I did not have a lot of coffee knowledge I did it casually but by season 2022-2023 I managed to get 631 kg which was 6.31 kgs per stem.

This ignited me to pursue more knowledge on coffee farming. Luckily in year 2023 the area MCA Hon Anthony Muriithi started a program dubbed as "YOUTH ON COFFEE" and I was appointed as one of beneficiary of the program where we were trained as TOT, this further boosted my urge to acquire more knowledge on coffee management and by the end of the course I started utilizing skills acquired and with this my coffee bushes are a testimony of the knowledge and hard work I have invested in them. This season I am estimating to harvest more than 10 kg per tree.

Even though I am proud of my achievement it has not been without some challenges because coffee needs an intensive management program and requires a lot of resources i.e. farming inputs, tree shading and labor.