Kampala, Sep. 10^th, 2010. The Kaweri Coffee Farmers Alliance Support Project carried out in Mityana and Mubende, Uganda, has been finalized after six years.

The beginning was an idea brought to paper in early 2004: the concept of providing coffee farmers with focused training and support in production, organizational development, value addition and market access to make a better income possible for them. By the second half of the same year, the concrete project design had begun. Implementation plans were made, communication initiated, farming know-how shared and farmers supported in establishing organizations. Financed through a grant contract with the NAO/EU, the project involved the commitment of numerous partners from both the private and the public sector.

Eventually, the project supported 14.574 farmers to organize themselves into 447 Producer Organisations (at primary level) and 24 Depot Companies (at secondary level). The average farmer has managed to increase his income by 212% - a number that is expected to rise to over 400% once the newly planted coffee seedlings will become productive. Government officials have visited the project, and referred to it as a model when designing new agricultural development programs. And next to this, the project laid the foundation for the establishment of the CFAU project, an up-scaling initiative bringing the alliance building concept into other prime producing regions of the country. The objective of the CFAU: supporting 20.000 farmers and their families to prospectively make a significantly better living of their coffee than today.

To have a look at the Kaweri Coffee Farmers Alliance Support Project’s milestones and the detailed implementation of it, please download the Final Report here.