Jjongoza Cooperative Robusta Natural UTZ

The 12 producer groups of the Jjongonza Farmers’ Cooperative, composed of about 30 farmers each, first met weekly under a tree in their village to discuss tactics for combatting coffee leaf rust (CLR).  Overtime, producers began talking more about tactics for competing in the coffee business and improving their coffee quality.

Since their humble beginnings underneath a local tree, the 12 farmer groups formed an official cooperative in April 2018. Now, they have leased land for their offices, warehouse and dry milling facilities. They also started a Village Savings and Loans Associations that enables producers to collectively save – and later borrow – money.

Farmers intercrop their coffee with subsistence and cash crops including bananas, beans, vanilla, passion fruit, cassava, maize and groundnuts.

Farmers selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and lay it to dry on raised beds. They rake drying cherry frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 2 weeks for cherry to dry.

Our partner, UGACOF/Sucafina Uganda is committed to improving quality in Uganda by building new washing stations and infrastructure and training personnel in the region. Collaborations with our FarmerHub program and our sustainability partner, the Kahawatu Foundation, are building upon our work to expand farmers’ access to better resources and better training. Our connections to our more established operations in nearby Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya offer us advice and a perspective steeped in a familiarity with East Africa.

The bulk of our work in Uganda is focused in the West, near the Rwenzori Mountains. The biggest difference between East (Mount Elgon) and West (Rwenzori) is that Mount Elgon is a more established and competitive market. We are excited to be at the forefront of the drive for enhancing coffee production infrastructure, developing the industry and becoming reliable partners for farmers in the Rwenzori Mountain region.

It is clear to us that the potential in this region might exceed our expectations and even the potential of the popular Mount Elgon region. With an ever-growing demand for high quality Arabicas and a sustained interest from roasters and coffee drinkers in the East African origins, we are very confident that, with diligence and effort, Western Ugandan coffees will be able to take their place alongside the other great East African coffees. ​

While the scale of work in regions like this can sometimes be overwhelming, we have a clear plan that steadily increases coffee quality.

Our first step is the one that leads to the most immediate and noticeable improvement: harvesting techniques. Due to a long history of home-processing and a lack of incentive for high quality, harvesting in the region is often semi- or entirely non-selective. Thanks to our extended network of cherry collection sites, we meet with farmers every day during the harvest season and can give real-time feedback that can impact the quality of the next day’s harvest. At the collection sites, we can insist on higher levels of care and reward meticulous picking. Though we’re still in the early years, we have seen a clear difference in quality from one year to another and even from the first week of the harvest to the last.

Future steps will include working with farmers to improve their access to materials and knowledge of better farming practices. This means making fertilizer more accessible, encouraging farmers to plant shade canopies and more. We’re planning on building demonstration plots, input access sites across the region and training a new generation of skilled washing station staff. We know it will take time, but we have a strategy and are committed to realizing this vision.