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Many Rwandan coffees are sourced from the highest-performing cooperatives within the Sustainable Growers women’s coffee program.
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Cafe de Maraba, Rwanda’s best selling specialty coffee. Credit: Rwashoscco
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Many of the key managers of Musasa (the Dukundekawa coffee cooperative), are women widowed by the 1994 genocide.
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Rwanda has 313 coffee washing stations across the country.
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Rwanda Coffee - A Second Sunrise at World of Coffee in Amsterdam in 2018.
Rwanda’s effort to turn around the economic scars inflicted on its by the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,0000 people were killed achieved tremendous success with the story getting even better when mingled with the role of coffee in the rejuvenation of the economy of this landlocked East African country of 13 million people.
The coffee sector in Rwanda, a country some love to call a “land of a thousand hills”, is a key contributor being named one of the most improved on the World Bank’s “Doing Business” report ranking 38 out of 190 countries in 2020 and 2nd best in Africa.
Although Rwanda posted a 3.4% contraction of its economy in 2020 – the first recession since the 1994 genocide – the profile of its coffee industry gained popularity in specialty markets competing with much larger coffee producing neighbors such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya.
Prioritizing the role of women
Production of specialty coffee in this country which is dotted with amazing mountains, rivers, lakes, and forests, hinges on several initiatives by both government and private firms including the prioritizing the role of women in the sector’s value and supply chain and the use of digital innovation in improving production and widening market outreach.
Furthermore, the quality of Rwandan coffee that comprises diverse types such as Caturra, Catuai, and Bourbon (arabica) with varietals like Harrar, POP3303/21, Jackson 2/1257, BM 139, and BM 71, which appeals to an in- creasing number of small- and medium-sized specialty coffee firms. Additionally, there is a growing tendency by coffee growers in Rwanda to certify crops by globally recognized organizations such as Fair Trade further endearing the coffee to more international buyers.
In fact, the increase in coffee output to 87 million metric tons (MT) in 2020/2021 season is not only a result of Rwanda’s high altitude that averages 5,600 feet especially in the central plateau, its rich volcanic soils, and its abundant rainfall that at times averages 1,170mm especially in the central and western regions of the country, but also because of the growing popularity of specialty coffee and efficiency of primary coffee cooperative societies where the harvested coffee is first delivered for initial processing.
Coffee: the leading contributor to export earnings
“We have seen an increase of fully washed and ordinary coffee export volumes and revenues every year,” says Rwanda Development Board (RDB), chaired by Itzhak Fisher, who is also the founder and general partner of Pereg Ventures, a Nielsen-backed private equity fund.
“Coffee has contributed 19% of the country’s agricultural export value in the past 5 years, adding significantly to foreign exchange earnings, and to the monetization of the rural economy,” Clare Akamanzi, RDB’s c.e.o. said at the 17th African Fine Coffees Conference and Exhibition in February, 2019.
“10 years ago, most of [Rawanda’s] exports were still semi-washed coffees and today over 55-60% of the coffees that we export are specialty coffees,” said ambassador William Bill Kayonga, the c.e.o. of the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB), in Rwanda. He added that while there was only 1 coffee shop 10 years ago, there are now countless shops, and coffee washing stations increased from less than 50 to about 300 over the same period.
“Rwanda was known for great coffee, and today the country is known for its exquisite coffees which are highly sought after worldwide,” said Kayonga. “We are happy that we can share with the world a coffee which is much sought after.”
Rwanda known for exquisite coffees
According to the most recent statistics by Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, more than 4.8 million of prepared coffee seedlings were planted during the 2020/2021 fiscal year to support the country’s coffee sector expansion program. Currently Rwanda’s 355,000 coffee growers committed an average of 39,844 hectares to coffee growing after an additional 1,957 hectares added in 2020/2021 fiscal year.
As the area under coffee in Rwanda expands, the country reports an output of 71,883 MT of coffee cherries processed through 313 coffee washing stations across the country according to NAEB. The board also says despite decrease in Rwanda’s export volumes during the 2020/2021 fiscal year, revenues went up 1.8%, “mainly due to increased average prices from USD3/ kg to USD3.6/kg.” Furthermore, Rwanda, which mainly exports fully washed coffee, semi-washed, triage, and natural estimated at 77.85%, 10.7%, 5.08%, and 4.24% respectively, prioritizes the use of extension services and information and communications technology (ICT) in modernizing its coffee sector.
Some of the main extension services include disease control support measures such as in controlling the coffee berry borer in coffee plantations. Additionally, coffee growers get fertilizers and other farm inputs supplied through cooperative societies and coffee traders which improvise productivity and keeps at bay the antestia bug, coffee leaf miner, and coffee stem borer.
Digitalization innovation revolutionizes the industry
To support coffee growers, Rwanda recently introduced the new Smart Kungahara System (SKS) that eases data collection on coffee processing at the cooperative society level including their washing stations. The digital initiative was first by BK Te- cHouse Ltd, the digital innovative power arm of Bank of Kigali Group initially as Smart Nkunganire System (SNS). The system targeted transformation of “agriculture from subsistence to commercialized farming through the application of digital solutions that support productivity.”
“The system eases all transactions in the agro-inputs supply chain, helps farmers to specify agrodealers’ shops from where to get subsidized seeds or fertilizers and enables them identify the number of farmers connected to a particular shop and required quantity in store,” explains NAEB. With SKS “farmers harvest and payments, input distribution and collection of coffee cherries will be recorded through the system.”
“Farmers’ database and transactions recorded into the digital system will enable them to access loans at the Bank of Kigali,” explains David Kayisire, product lead at BK TecHouse.
According to NAEB, the smart agriculture solutions “have been broadened to reach coffee farmers from across the country to pave their way to wealth and help them shift from analog to digital transactions.”
“With SKS, we shall get timely information on all transactions in the coffee sector and easily monitor whether inputs have been delivered to right beneficiaries on time. It comes in handy to fast-track the development of coffee sector,” says Protais Hakizimana, coffee value officer at NAEB.
For more than three years, Rwanda’s coffee has also been sold on the world’s largest e-commerce platform, Alibaba. The initiative came soon after the Rwanda government signed the electronic world trade platform (eWTP) partnership with the China-based e-commerce giant to trade Rwandan products on the online market. RDB says since 2018 “sales volumes of Rwandan coffee have grown by 700% on Tmall Global, Ali- baba’s cross-border B2C platform.”
Dukunde Kawa: “let’s love coffee
This deployment of digital innovation, especially the SKS, is not only revolutionizing Rwanda’s coffee industry value chain but enables leading primary coffee cooperatives societies such as Dukunde Kawa (translated “let’s love coffee”) cooperative society at Musasa in the slopes of northern Rwanda’s Gakenke district, to achieve phenomenal growth such as winning the Cup of Excellence in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2018.
The 2003-formed society, with 80% of its 2,000 members made up of women coffee growers, is leveraging on ICT to market its Fair Trade certified coffee separately “as women-grown coffee, garnering earnings that go toward child education and improvements that directly affect the lives of community members,” according to Sustainable Harvest, an importer of exquisite specialty coffees globally. The cooperative society is also one of those reaping benefits from globally recognized certifications such as Organic, Fairtrade, Rain Forest Alliance, UTZ, and C.A.F.E. Practices.
Cooperative societies such as Dukunde Kawa, use their coffee washing stations to carry out initial coffee processing of the cherry coffee from the nearly 355,000 coffee growers across Rwanda while large traders, such as Rwanda Trading Company (RTC), receive semi-washed coffee that is then supplied to dry coffee millers either as semi-washed or fully washed. RTC processes and exports nearly 24% of Rwanda’s annual coffee output.
The company together with IMPEXCOR, Dormans and RWACOF Exports SARL, control an estimated 64% of Rwanda’s coffee exports according to the Center for the Promotion of Imports (CBI) that is part of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency with financing from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The outbreak of Covid-19 did not only bring about a global economic downturn but also disrupted Rwanda’s coffee sales and consumption trends as the hospitality industry took a hit from the pandemic that triggered widespread lockdowns and movement restrictions. For coffee, consumption was reduced because of the home-stay orders by various governments including coffee exporting countries such as Rwanda.
“Coffee production slightly rose by 1.07% from 6,754 MT registered in the second quarter of 2019/2020 fiscal year to 7,034 MT in same period of 2020/2021 due to good agronomical practices applied in farms,” says NAEB in its update on the 2020/2021 second quarter of agro-exports.
Coffee exports declined by 4% from 7,865 MT registered in the second quarter of 2019/2020 fiscal year to 6,763 MT in same period of 2020/2021 “mainly because of reduced markets of produced coffee as a result of Covid-19 hence leading to large quantities that are still in stock.”
The decline in volumes was, however, compensated by the good price at the international coffee market that saw the country’s coffee export revenues surge 3%, to US$26.1 million in the second quarter of 2020/2021 fiscal year from US$ 25.3 million in the same quarter of 2019/2020 fiscal year.
Despite being landlocked, the country’s coffee exporters use the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania respectively to ship out the commodity to key markets such as Germany, Belgium, US, France, UK, and Switzerland. No doubt Rwanda’s coffee has gained global recognition with the country set to host the upcoming 3rd World Coffee Producers’ Forum (WCPF) in June, 2022 where more than 2,000 participants from 70 countries who include coffee producers, industry representatives, government officials, multilateral agencies, coffee business dealers at large among others, are expected to approve the creation of National Coffee Sustainability Plans.
Despite grappling with challenges such as lack of technical know-how among some growers, inaccessibility to quality farm inputs and hurdles in accessing premium price paying markets, there is huge political goodwill in Rwanda to ensure the country revives and successfully implements the National Coffee Strategy that targets an even bigger production of specialty coffee in the medium and long term.