In Rwanda’s southern Huye region, when coffee cherries have turned red and ripe, trained farmers harvest these fruits at just the right moment. The harvesters work methodically, emerging from the shade of one coffee tree and into the harsh sunlight, before alighting on the next. The silence of the work is punctuated only by the birdsong and the ping of the ripe cherries hitting the plastic buckets.
The selected cherries are transferred quickly to workstations. These stations in wide, open spaces are tucked in between the rolling hills of the region. Men and women flank long tables, working in silence, carefully selecting only the highest quality cherries.
That selection proceeds to the washing station. Unlike the harvesting and sorting process, undertaken in silence, the washing station, closer to the processing facilities, is punctuated by relentless movement and noise.
Aphrodis Twagirayezu, agronomist and manager of the Kyarumba coffee washing station, describes, “Once the workers have carefully selected the coffee cherries, removing those that are too ripe, we get them into the floating tank to remove those that float.”
Aphrodis explains that damaged, underripe or dried out cherries can be identified through a flotation test. “It all depends on the density. High-quality coffee displays higher density in water – they’re the sinkers – while the lower quality coffee floats to the top. We remove those lower quality cherries before moving forward with the processing.”
This washing station step is key to identifying only the best cherries destined for specialty coffees. Those select cherries will next proceed to further processing: de-pulping, fermentation, washing and drying.
The proliferation of coffee washing stations – and the accompanying training for farmers, sorters and coffee-washing station workers – has been crucial in transforming Rwanda’s coffee harvests into specialty coffees fetching higher prices – destined for niche markets abroad.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, another country renowned for its coffee, a coffee cooperative in Baringo County revived itself by adopting new leadership and implementing a series of reforms to improve governance and business management to deal with low production and rapidly declining membership.
A much bigger producer of coffee than Rwanda, Kenya is equally well known for its high-quality Arabica beans. Production is widespread across the country, with coffee grown in 33 of its 47 counties, providing important employment and livelihoods for millions of rural Kenyans.
Like in Rwanda, Kenyan small-scale coffee production relies heavily on cooperatives, which provide coffee farmers with access to finance and markets, better processing facilities and the ability to weigh in on decisions that affect their businesses.
Both countries partner with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to prioritise coffee production and consistently work to improve that production to increase earnings for their many smallholder farmers.
Rwanda has chosen coffee as the national priority of FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative to further develop and invest in the country’s coffee value chains. With this prioritisation through the FAO programme, Rwanda aims to leverage public-private partnerships and innovative business models to engage youth and incorporate agri-tech solutions in coffee production.
In Kenya, Baringo County cooperatives partnered with FAO’s Forest and Farm Facility, which bolstered the cooperative’s reforms with a USD 30 000 grant as part of its Small Grants Programme. The transformation in less than three years has been impressive. Membership has increased from 756 to almost 1 200 farmers. The proportion of women and young people as cooperative members jumped from around 10 percent to 40 percent.
“Our members are involved in each and every activity right from the planning stage,” said Jackson Lenge, Chairman Tenges Farmers’ Cooperative Society Ltd in Baringo. “We conducted training on coffee value chain analysis and development where we addressed issues on coffee establishment, right from land preparation, crop management issues, fertiliser application, pruning and other management aspects.”
Though different at different scales, coffee is central to rural employment, livelihoods and national economies in Kenya, Rwanda and a number of other countries in Africa. The African continent accounts for 17 percent of global coffee production and 12 percent of global coffee exports. These exports also generate foreign-exchange earnings and establish important trade relations with markets around the world.
On this first International Coffee Day, we celebrate the coffee crop that bolsters employment and rural livelihoods and the coffee farmers in Rwanda, Kenya and worldwide, who are constantly innovating and improving production to provide a premium export product to coffee consumers around the world.
