KENYAN COFFEE NEEDS RAIN, TRADERS SAY

  Kenya's late coffee crop is flowering
  well, but the main coffee areas were generally dry and hot in
  the week ended Wednesday, trade sources said.
      "Machakos, Embu, Meru and Kirinyaga in eastern Kenya, and
  Nyeri and Thika in central, have been dry in the past week. The
  farmers expect rain this week. If it does not fall output of
  the late (October-November-December) crop will decline sharply,"
  one source said.
      He said that since most growers did not irrigate their crop
  they could do nothing but wait for rain, the main factor which
  determines Kenyan coffee production.
      Two months ago the International Coffee Organization issued
  a forecast of Kenyan exportable coffee production in the
  1986/87 (Oct-Sept) season at 1.82 mln bags.
  

