In Kenya's coffee growing area of Komothai, record prices at auction have farmers dreaming of a better future and driving to improve their crop. Record high commodity prices have rattled finance ministeries in the West, but poor growers see things differently - especially in Kenya where reforms now mean more profits trickle down to them.
Coffee from the local co-operative society fetched $1,011 per 50-kg bag in January, a heady price for any coffee farmer around the world. "Now you can build a house, you can pay school fees, you can buy inputs. Before this, you couldn't do any of that," said Duncan Kimani, 52, pruning excess twigs off bushes with green berries that will be ready for harvest in April.
"Now we can live like humans." Kenyan coffee prices have hit records this year - climbing as high as $1,022 per bag - because of high prices internationally and on a squeeze in the local supply. But that has a double edge: encouraging farmers to pay more attention to their coffee but are also deterring buyers, who are turning to specialty beans from other countries in the region.
Small-scale coffee farmers complain perennially that they do not receive the rightful share of earnings, with the bulk going to middlemen such as millers or exporters. Some have neglected their coffee trees or chopped them down altogether and taken up dairy farming in frustration at years of hard toil with no returns.
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