Nairobi, Nov 17 - Kenya aims to raise coffee production to 100,000 tonnes per year by 2012 by boosting funding to small-scale farmers and expanding coffee-producing zones in east Africa's biggest economy.
Kenya harvested 42,000 tonnes in the 2007/08 crop year (Oct-Sept) and the regulator Coffee Board of Kenya (CBK) expects output to rise to 60,000 in 2008/09 due to favourable weather.
Although a small producer by global standards, contributing 1 percent of the world's coffee, Kenya's beans are favoured by roasters who use them to blend with coffees from other regions.
"We are targeting ... national production of 100,000 metric tonnes of coffee (per year) by, say, the end of 2012," said George Ooko, chief executive of the Coffee Development Fund, an agriculture ministry agency.
"After that we are going to target the next benchmark which is 150,000 tonnes," he told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
He said doubling the east African nation's coffee exports, which earn the country an average 8 billion Kenyan shillings ($102.6 million) annually, could boost economic growth.
"If exports double, what effect will that have on the economy ?" he said. "I am yet to work (that) out precisely, with the help of a national economist, but don't be surprised if this can contribute 1 percent growth to the total economy."
Kenya's coffee industry faces many challenges such as weather -- as it mainly relies on seasonal rainfalls -- poor infrastructure, berry diseases and a lack of funds for inputs.
"The sector has many challenges but the key one has been lack of credit," said Ooko.
He said his fund would spend $11.83 million in the two years ending next June providing loans to small-scale coffee growers.
The government hopes this will help farmers increase productivity and motivate those who had given up coffee farming, due to low earnings, to return to their farms.
"These (loans) go to buy fertiliser and agro-chemicals for coffee. The farmer gets the money to buy inputs. We are targeting productivity per tree," said Ooko.
He said the programme was also being used to reach out to areas that traditionally do not produce much coffee, such as the Rift Valley region districts of Baringo, Bomet and West Pokot.
"These are some of the new zones where a lot of new farmers are coming up," said Ooko.
More than half of Kenya's coffee is grown in the Central and Eastern provinces.
Some 50,000 farmers have benefitted from the fund's financing programme in a country with about 700,000 small scale coffee farmers, according to the last count by regulator CBK.
"It has had a huge impact on farmers because they have seen that money is available," Ooko said.