NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has put in place measures aimed at increasing annual coffee production from 40,000 metric tons to 48,000 metric tons, a government official has revealed.

Kiplimo Melli, interim head of the Coffee Directorate, said farmers have started putting more land under coffee.

"We have introduced fertilizer subsidy, removed the four percent coffee levies and introduced new varieties that has reduced expenditure on coffee production by 30 percent and wavered farmers' debts," he told a conference in Nairobi on Wednesday.

Melli revealed that Western Kenya's regions that initially relied on maize growing as their economic activity, are fast switching to coffee hence gearing toward increasing the acreage of the crop.

Melli also announced plans to start growing coffee under irrigation to help save farmers from the effects of climate change that have heavily affected the sector in the recent past.

He said the directorate has embarked on coffee trading and consumption through talks at the local universities.

"We have held talks in four universities that have led to the founding of 267 cafes in various parts of the country by university graduates," Melli added.

According to the government statistics, Kenya coffee production has declined from 129,000 metric tons in 1987/88 to 40,000 metric tons currently.

Melli attributed the decline to low productivity, deterioration of coffee quality due to lack of facilities and a volatile market that had been dominated by brokers.

He said the sharp decline is more severe in smallholder farmers with yield per tree declined while equally the youths are not yet ready to embrace coffee farming, citing low returns.

Elijah Gichuru, a researcher from the Coffee Research Institute (CRI), noted that pests, diseases and climate change remain the biggest threat to the sector.

He said they have introduced a new coffee variety that takes 18 months to mature as opposed to the ones that takes three years.

"This will enable farmers, especially the youths to venture into serous growing of the crop," he added.

Coffee is the fourth leading foreign exchange earner for Kenya after tourism, tea and horticulture, according to the bureau of statistics.

Eduardo Sampaio, Universal Trade Zone (UTZ) coffee field representative in Brazil, called on coffee stakeholders in Kenya to include the youth and women in farming to help increase productivity and income from the international trade.

He said that for the Kenyan coffee sector to improve after recording a dwindling trend, the youth and women must be engaged in farming since the forms the bulk of smallholder farmers in the country.

"The youth and women have the ability to bring change to the sector now that the country is beginning to make inroads towards a take off," he said.

Sampaio revealed that smallholder farmers that include women and the youth in Brazil and Honduras, in South America produces over 70 percent of coffee, a trend that can as well be replicated in Kenya through the promotion of financial support, access to inputs and equipments, enabling use of god agricultural practices and mechanizing the sector.

"You have to disseminate technique, improve research and improve soil fertility to be able to revolutionize the sector back to where it used to be," the expert added.

He noted that the governments also need to help improve good agricultural practices by ensuring that extension and cooperatives are well managed.