Coffee farmers owe Ocir Café Rwf.495 million in un-paid loans

The coffee farmers in the province are reluctant to pay outstanding loans to the tune of Rwf.495 million which was advanced to them to improve coffee production last year, an official of the coffee regulatory authority Ocir Café said. Talking to The New Times after a meeting with coffee cooperatives and other stakeholders in Province, at the weekend, Laurent Kamurase, the head of Finance and Administration at Ocir Café said: “Cooperatives have not even paid 20 percent of the credit they were given, this makes the partners lose trust in them, thus affecting the sector.” Pointing out that the loan recovery problem cuts across the country, he warned that failure to pay could affect the coffee sector. The meeting was called to find ways and strategies to be used to recover the outstanding loans while also aiming at increasing coffee production in 2009. Farmers in Eastern Province alone were given over Rwf.495 million.At the meeting they pledged to repaid 50 percent of the outstanding amounts by the end of next month. Kamurase suggested that failure to service the loan was out of lack of commitment because coffee production improved last year after the application of the fertilisers. According to him, Ocir Café has tasked coffee cooperatives, washing stations and local leaders to help recover the money by deducting it from the farmers’ sales proceeds. At the meeting, local leaders were tasked to include promotion of coffee growing in their annual plans, and Kamurase said this year focus has shifted to increasing the production of quality coffee. To increase production, farmers were also advised to cut and replace old coffee trees with new varieties and to embrace modern methods such as spraying the crops to keep off pests so as to minimise risks of contracting diseases and to increase coffee washing stations in order to export value added coffee. Ends