Region Update: Kenya $ee$ 2008/09 coffee harve$t up 43 pct

NAIROBI, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Kenya (Our special this month: Kenay AA roasted to order: $10.95 lb Click here to buy) will produce an estimated 60,000 tonnes of coffee in 2008/09 (Oct-Sept) crop year as a result of favorable weather in key growing areas, a senior government official said on Thursday.

The east Africa nation produced 42,000 tonnes in 2007/08, said Bernard Gichovi, technical manager at the industry regulator Coffee Board of Kenya.

"If everything goes well, it will be a good harvest," he told Reuters in an interview.

Kenya is a small producer globally, contributing only about 1 percent of the coffee consumed globally, but its specialty beans are sought after to blend with those from bigger growers.

"Weather has been quite good. Rains, which usually start in April, started early in February. So flowering went on well to develop into the fruit (berry)," he said, adding that this year was not as cold as the previous one.

Flowering usually starts in March or April.

Cold weather weakens undeveloped berries, making them drop to the ground before full maturity. This season, however, coffee trees were strong enough to support high output.

"This is because we lost most of the crop last season," Gichovi said.

Growers in Nyeri and Kirinyaga districts of central Kenya, key growing areas, agreed with Gichovi's assessment.

"There is a lot of coffee this season. I can only compare the season with 1987 when we sold the most coffee ever," said farmer Mwangi Gichohi at his Thangathi farm in Nyeri.

Kenya produced a record 130,000 tonnes of clean coffee in the 1987/88 crop year.

Harvests have been on the decline since as prices plummeted globally and as Kenyan farmers accumulated debt and took less care of their bushes.

Although Kenya expects good prices this coffee year, Gichovi said turmoil in the global economy could hurt commodity prices.

But Gichovi projected that coffee prices through direct sales between farmer groups and roasters abroad will be higher this season than previously.

"It is expected that there will be more revenue from the direct sales," Gichovi said. During last season, 30,000 50-kg bags of clean coffee were sold through that system.

Prices ranged between $500 and $700 dollars per 50-kg bag and much coffee from Gikanda Cooperative Society in Nyeri district, fetched $1,138 per bag, Gichovi said.

In the previous 2006/2007 season, Gichovi said Kenya sold only 16,400 bags through the so-called "second window".

Until 2006 when Kenya allowed direct sales, all coffee went through a weekly auction. That system is still in place.

Gichovi said the board advises farmers to go for a direct sale if buyers were offering better prices than the auction would yield. "The reason for the direct sales is to spur prices," he said. (Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura, Editing by Peter Blackburn)