The project Building Coffee Farmers Alliances in Uganda (CFAU Project) has been initiated in late 2009. Aiming at surpassing the poverty line of USD 1.0 per person each day, the project's vision is that within the next 8 years, up to 20.000 farmers and their families will be able to make a significantly better living of their coffee than today.

The Road to Success

The key to success in this project is the step-by-step improvement of coffee production and the farmer's knowledge of the coffee business. Concretely, this means working on productivity, product quality, efficiency and commercial aspects just as the establishment and professionalization of farmer organizations. Especially the latter is an important milestone to be reached: by partnering up with other producers from their area, the farmers will achieve lower costs through economies of scale in the access to inputs and services as well as raise the efficiency in marketing and add value to their products (see also: the project profile of the UNCFA).

Our Outline

High aims have we set and we are driven to achieve them. Supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and together with dedicated further partners, we are confident of being able to empower coffee producers in Uganda for raising income and becoming economically self-sustaining.

The key elements of our concept are the following:

• Establishing and strengthening farmer organizations
• Raising productivity
• Improving quality
• Improving commercialization and marketing
• Raising efficiency of operations
• Improving access to financing
• Strengthening the position of women
• Involving youths
• Improving social living conditions

Here, it becomes obvious that sustainable coffee production must be a holistic approach addressing all aspects of the farmer's life and his community.

Up-Scaling: knowledge-sharing on an international basis

In a technical sense, the term "up-scaling" refers to the ability of projecting experiences that proved successful in a small setting to a larger scale. In the coffee sector, this functions quite similarly.

Our positive learning builds on the process of facilitating the creation of the Uganda Natural Coffee Farmers Alliance (UNCFA), a project that we started with partners in February 2005 in Mityana and Mubende Districts. With the intention of supporting 15.000 farmers to lead a better life, the project team started encouraging farmers to organize and strengthen their stake in business by professionalizing their daily operations. Four years later, we celebrated a considerable milestone when farmers in the project started selling green coffee jointly in Kampala, and directly to exporters, instead of delivering dried cherries individually to local middlemen.

This is only one example of how our approach has proven to work. The Building Coffee Farmers Alliances Project in Uganda now aims at applying the measures that have shown their effect on a small-scale to a bigger scale, moving from 15.000 farmers to an additional 20.000. The idea of scaling up is to increase the amount of beneficiaries, and to thereby stimulate systemic change in coffee districts of the country (along the three aspects of replicating, spreading and institutionalizing). The project will be the largest coffee project in Uganda and the largest project dealing with Robusta coffee in the world.

The project launch

On May 5^th, this project was officially launched in Kampala, Uganda. A field visit provided the possibility to meet some of the beneficiaries in their homes and fields, and to have a personal talk with them. During a press conference, Michael Opitz, Jorge Tiemeier , Dana Boggess (the representative from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and Henry Ngabirano (Director of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority), introduced the project's concept and the kind support provided by donor organizations. The later cocktail reception allowed the invitees to ask more questions in a more personal frame, and formed a sound foundation for the active work to follow.

The event was a great success, and partners of the Foundation showed considerable interest in the innovative concept of the CFAU project.

Click here to read the Press Release and the Fact Sheet - or have a look at our picture gallery.