Coffee has always been one of Kenya's great resources, but not always in the past have all the necessary efforts been made at the national level to improve its supply chain, i.e. to connect the farmers, who are often gathered in small cooperatives and communities in rural areas in the north and northwest of the country, to the market.

In 2018, the then Vice-President William Ruto, now the country's leader and by his personal background always linked to agriculture and convinced that it remains his nation's driving sector, spoke about this with Italian institutions, asking for help in enhancing the value of Kenyan coffee.
The Italian state, through the Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) did much more, relying on Cefa, a civil society organisation that has always specialised in solidarity projects in the field of agronomy, and the Avsi and E4Impact foundations.

Six years later, the first results of the 'Arabika' project were presented in the residence of the Italian ambassador in Nairobi. In addition to the aforementioned cooperation organisations, the project involves 21 cooperatives of coffee growers from 7 counties in the country, with specific training according to their skills and tasks, to 30 thousand of them, more than 18 thousand of which have already been carried out, the supply of machinery and improvements to 42 laboratories to process coffee beans, plus the expertise needed to create a specific brand for each of the seven counties' products and organise marketing accordingly. 'A pilot project, yes, but a substantial one,' as the project coordinator for AICS, Giulio Di Pinto, presented it. It is indeed an initiative for which Aics has allocated EUR 3 million.

 "Through our cooperation, we want to help Kenyan coffee farmers to enhance their product in terms of quality, quantity and also price, in order to have a greater presence on the market," Ambassador Roberto Natali explained to the press on the sidelines of the meeting.
The owner of the AICS office in Nairobi, Giovanni Grandi, confirmed the success of this operation, which aims to provide not only know-how and improve quality and productivity in the field of coffee, but also awareness of being able to focus on Kenya's Arabica as one of the leading products in its market.
'As a cooperation, we are focusing on four or five sectors in Kenya and the enhancement of agriculture is one of our priorities,' Grandi said. 'In the next three years, Italy will invest around 100 million euro.

We at Malindikenya.net attended the event presenting the results achieved so far, but beforehand we were also 'in the field', i.e. in one of the workshops of the 42 cooperatives where dozens of coffee growers bring their product to be processed.
We were able to verify the goodness of an operation that is not only providing specific skills, training young people and creating the so-called 'value chain', but also nurturing passion, through wider and more realistic earning possibilities, in small local farmers.

We could see how some of them, after kilometres from the plantations to sell their coffee to one of the cooperatives in the Gathundu area of Kiambu County, amidst spectacular hills and green valleys, asked to be paid in part with their own product, processed and packaged. On the other hand, according to data provided by AICS, many of them have doubled their harvests, thanks to Italian help and also to apps and technology provided to them.
Hearing the managers trained by Cefa, the technicians working on the separating and roasting machines, seeing their professionalism and enthusiasm, was an experience that makes one think that cooperation does not only mean 'solidarity', but transmission of skills, comparison, economic and social growth.

"We are a nation that since independence has been able to largely manage the country's immense coffee plantations, which had always been in the hands of the British colonialists who did not allow us to own them," recalled the head of the Vice-President's office, George Macgoye, "and today Kenyans do not consume or know enough about their coffee. They still prefer tea and consequently do not know how to exploit this great resource, in which the international market is increasingly interested'.

Yes, because with Kenyan Arabica quality, the best coffee blends in the world are made, but there are still too few international companies and consequently also Italian ones that buy it. And it is also a problem of marketing, visibility and 'branding'. Our cooperation is working on this aspect, which contributes to strengthening the increasingly close and good relations between Italy and Kenya, especially in the name of business.
"Even our private sector, not only with the big names in the coffee sector, but at the level of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are our driving force, can be involved in looking at Kenya, which is equally strong in this sector," Natali added.