Understanding Incentives and Governance of Kenyan Coffee Cooperatives

Although programs for setting up coffee mills and cooperatives across Africa have been successful in increasing coffee quality and the price paid to cooperatives, they have been less effective at passing these gains on to farmers. The problem appears to be linked to governance issues in the cooperatives—for example, problems with recording how much coffee is in fact delivered by the farmers. In this project, researchers in collaboration with TechnoServe (TNS) will explore the source of corruption in coffee cooperatives in Kenya. This pilot project will use interviews and field visits to design and develop a program to introduce electronic weighing scales among cooperatives. This will be complemented with additional treatments, which might include audits, an extra monitor, the random verification of farms, or an incentive on aggregate quantities/ratios.