Technoserve Coffee Initiative
- Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed)
Reference for funding platform pilots:
In 2008, TechnoServe and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Coffee Initiative, a project to improve the livelihoods of smallholder coffee farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. The initiative worked with local farmers to establish new coffee cooperatives and strengthen existing ones, and then worked with the cooperatives to create business plans and access financing for wet mills. These wet mills process coffee cherries into high-quality coffee beans, which can be profitably sold to specialty coffee markets.
TechnoServe also provided agronomy and business training, helping farmers to grow more coffee and maize, keep better records of their revenues and expenses and better understand the nutritional needs of their families. The Coffee Initiative has worked with other actors in the coffee industry, such as banks and exporters, helping them to provide credit and essential services to cooperatives and farmers. And the project has helped to link cooperatives with buyers who seek high-quality coffee beans.
The strong business connections forged between farmers, cooperatives, service providers and buyers helped to ensure that the changes to the regional coffee sector last long after the completion of the project, bringing continued benefits to smallholder farmers.
Results
The Coffee Initiative supported 340 cooperative wet mills, which in turn supported 259,274 smallholding coffee farmers that supplied them. Because of the improved quality of their coffee and access to the specialty markets facilitated by the project, the wet mills received an average price increase of $1.54 on every kilogram of coffee exported, and farmers received an average price increase of $0.43 for every kilogram that they sold.