38. Project Kick-Off at Lemigo Hotel

Oct. 13, 2015
Lemigo Hotel, Kigali, Rwanda

Participants at the AGLC Kick-Off meeting included top Rwandan and US government officials, NAEB, implementing partners including IPAR, AgroPy, Starbucks, CEPAR, NAEB, GKI, U. of Ngozi, U. of Gitega, U. of Rwnada, MSU.

Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 marked the official launch of the collaborative 3-year Africa Great Lakes Coffee program. The program aims to strengthen the productivity and quality of specialty coffee in the Africa Great Lakes region through research and policy support.

The launch workshop was hosted by the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) and co-hosted by Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI) Michigan State University (MSU) and the University of Rwanda (UR). Amb. George Kayonga the CEO of the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) gave the welcome. His remarks set the vision for the impact that can be accomplished through the program implementation. Welcome remarks were also delivered by the Executive Director of IPAR, while the key address was from USAID-Rwanda.

Participants at the workshop were drawn from stakeholders in the coffee industry and they included high-level Rwandan and US government officials, the stakeholders in Rwanda’s coffee sector, a representative of USAID Burundi, and Drs. Bonaventure Minani and Gustav Nkurunziza from Ngozi, and Gitega Universities (respectively) who are the implementing partners of the project in

Burundi.

Speakers during the opening ceremony thanked the different stakeholders for their role and support in making the workshop a success. They underscored the timeliness of this workshop and requested for maximum participation from everyone. They also stressed the importance of building policies based on research and evidence.

The New Times, Rwanda's English language newspaper, published an article here: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2015-10-14/193485/

A key activity during the day-long program involved all participants collaborating to clarify the research situation in which this project is about to launch. Participants first mapped challenges related to antestia/productivity and related to building an enabling environment to resolve these challenges.  They took the top 18 challenges, and analyzed this - exploring what we know, what we don't know, and what we might be assuming about the challenges. Then, based on what they had learned, the group honed this list of 18 down to 11 "How Might We's" (HMW):

No. 1: HMW understand the most effective pesticide

No. 1: HMW improve knowledge on how to eliminate PTD

No. 1: HMW understand the necessary incentives to decrease PTD?

No. 4: HMW make agronomic guidelines available to farmers

No. 5: HMW improve market access for farmers

No. 5: HMW address risks associated with coffee production

No. 7: HMW encourage full implementation of IPM

No. 7: HMW make enough fertilizer available to all farmers?

No. 9: HMW improve extension services to coffee farmers?

No 10: HMW connect coffee quality to coffee prices?

No. 11: HMW improve the information dissemination system along the coffee value chain? 

Post kick-off meetings followed the kick-off conference on the next day. These were productive, allowing the implementing partners the face-to-face time needed to design the next steps of the many components of this project:

Key components include:

1. Field research with 64 demonstration plots in each country.
2. Field research with a baseline, mid-term, and end-line survey of 1024 farmers in 4 districts in each country (the mid-term survey will be a sub-set). 
3. The two field research components will feed the capacity building (training) and policy development components.

 

37. Announcing the Africa Great Lakes Coffee project

Oct. 2, 2015

First International Coffee Day appears to have been a good day for announcements of new coffee research projects -- the newest being a unique, three year, $1.8 million collaborative approach from Michigan State University, with support from USAID:  
USAID's announcement - click here.
Michigan State's announcement - click here. 
Daily Coffee News version - click here.

Another program, CRS Coffeelands, introduced a re-shaping and reinvestment of $4.5 million in their work with CIAT. They describe the $4.5 million initiative that will put researchers in Central Africa, Central America, East Africa, South America and the United States.

With a more modest $ scale than CRS, and a regional approach (2 primary countries), the Africa Great Lakes Coffee project is pursuing:

Impact Programming: improvements in coffee agronomy combined with understanding of smallholder decision-making using choice-experiment research. A large household survey of 1024 farmers in each country (total HHs = 2024) will bring data to questions that are currently only understood with anecdotes, especially around awareness of issues with pest management and tree productivity (yield).

Industry Engagement: major private sector actors in Rwanda and Burundi, as well as the in-country association of coffee exporters are engaged.

Policy Engagement: a key goal of the project is policy engagement with field data and discussions with policy stakeholders begin immediately. This component of the project is the key focus and will be monitored and evaluated carefully.

Applied research: the program includes 64 controlled agronomy demonstration plots in each country, each with a lead farmer.  Paralleling the household survey, the focus on the demonstration plots is pest management and productivity. Complimentary capacity building will share results and seek to make farm-level impacts through radio, SMS, and engagement with the in-country universities where extension workers are trained.

The program actually began operating in August 2015. Formal kick-off activities will take place in Kigali in mid-October and the program will run through the end of September 2018.

36. International Coffee Day - Challenge of Transformation in Rwanda and Burundi

 

Oct. 1, 2015

Today Michigan State University and USAID unveiled a $1.8 million investment in Rwandan and Burundian coffee farmers -- which together number approximately 1 million smallholder farmers. MSU Announcement.
USAID announcement. The timing of the announcement was carefully choreographed to be on precisely on International Coffee Day, as the actual project work has been going on for two months. The delay in the announcement shows the thought and importance that the organizations wanted to bring to the fact that they are making this investment.

Other voices in specialty coffee have raised the plea for investments to strengthen the "smallholder" base of the coffee supply chain. [For example here and here.] This project could be a model for other efforts to address farmworker and smallholder issues. It brings together rigorous agronomy researchers, economics researchers and "policy shaping" activities, with solid engagement from researchers in the producing countries themselves. Personally, I have seen few donor-funded projects with such inter-disciplinary goals, activities and individuals all in one package. Such projects are a challenge to create and manage, but watch this space. To address resilience in the complex world of coffee, this type of multi-faceted project may be required.

The Challenge of Coffee-Led Economic Development
This project is also a story about the long, long road nations must travel to transform themselves from being a commodity coffee "afterthought" on the global coffee hierarchy, to a "top of mind" household name in the minds of specialty coffee consumers. Rwanda and Burundi are often touted as "poster children" who have achieved what many continue to dream of -- moving from non-existence on the specialty coffee world map a decade ago, to "darlings" of the specialty green buyers' shopping list. Both countries hold enviable reputations now for offering fruitiness, acidity, smooth body and chocolate undertones. Given the hype, it would be easy to assume Rwanda and Burundi can rest on their laurels.

Unfortunately, the reality is much closer to what every farmer knows. The work is never done. Rwanda and Burundi face pest issues that make leaf rust look like a walk in the park, and because their coffee sectors are so under-developed, the resources are scarce for addressing acute issues, like the antestia bug. In addition, these countries face decades-old issues like tree yields close to the lowest in the world (1.5 kg per tree), year-to-year production cyclicity close to the highest in the coffee world and a persistently high share of "ordinary" (commodity) vs. specialty coffee.

Thrilled and Daunted
Since I am part of this applied research project, I am both thrilled and daunted to have the opportunity to work on these issues. Thrilled, because as humans, especially coffee industry people, we are eternally optimistic that we can make the future brighter. I'm also thrilled because the team implementing this project is comprised of a unique set of true experts whose work is always excellent. Compliments to the project's director, Dan Clay, for bringing this international team together.

What is daunting is the realization that while this $1.8 million is a significant amount, my experience in economic development for over 20 years tells me it's still not nearly enough to erase decades-old problems. However, I hope we can say (with some well designed monitoring and evaluation work) that we have made a significant 'dent', and perhaps that will lead to the larger investments needed for a sustainable coffee future.

More in the months ahead!

35. Farm management, Daterra and quality levels

Sept. 5, 2015

I had the chance to talk with Linda Smithers of Daterra Estate in Brazil last weekend. For those that aren't familiar with Daterra Estate, if you are familiar with the auto industry, Daterra is like the Toyota or the Mercedes of coffee. They produce some of the industry's highest quality coffees consistently, sustainably and in high volumes. Measuring and documenting processes and quality thresholds is down to a science. There are high levels of investment in worker training, working conditions, and environmental protections. They have ISO 14000, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ and other certifications. I could go on. Daterra does so much right, one could write a book on it.

In this blog we'll just focus on Daterra as an example of the fact that poor quality happens in agriculture. You cannot avoid it, even if you are Daterra Estate. You can only manage it. At Daterra they have five (count 'em five) electronic sorts on coffee beans after harvest to make sure only the highest quality gets the Daterra brand. Which means, of course, poor quality cherry was picked and low quality beans were produced. And according to Linda, you can even have as your strategy, that "commercial grade" (low grade) coffee pays your bills. This means revenue from premium, high-priced (but low volume) coffee is then used to cover the "non-essentials", which may be innovation, and 'extras' in the area of R&D, marketing and training. (Some marketing, research and worker training is essential, of course, but not all of it.)

According to Linda, Daterra's specialty grade coffee is 85% of production. I didn't ask her to confirm this, but I'm assuming this means that a relatively low level of costs are considered "essential", since they are covering their essential costs from only the "low price point" 15% of their production. By the way, Daterra's "low price point" coffees are not branded "Daterra". They know that would dilute the Daterra brand.

This all relates to countries like Rwanda and Burundi and their national debate over "what level of total coffee production should be specialty?" And the other side of that "coin", what level is OK to leave as commodity, low grade coffee? Specialty can't be 100%. But should it be 85%? Or 60%? Linda Smither's response to this question (thanks, Linda!) was there is no correct level. What matters is your starting point, and how fast you grow that level of high-quality from where ever you're starting. I asked her about a country like Rwanda, where specialty grades are just about at 40% of the country's total exported production in volume (not value). (Here we assume fully-washed coffee equals specialty coffee, which it doesn't, but for reasons we won't go into, it's a good proxy.) Linda said that once you're at 40% of volume, the ramp upward is not so steep. A realistic goal might be 2.5 - 5% annual volume growth for specialty.

Taking this to the farm level, Linda says that many coffee farmers she meets are starting with only 5% of their crop being even close to specialty. She tells them that they could double that percentage (i.e. achieve 10% specialty grade) in 3 years. And then, of course, she works with them to help them have the tools and know-how to achieve that growth. That is another amazing product Daterra offers the world of coffee -- training and inspiration.