Farm Africa launched a new project in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, to increase the sustainable production of high-quality coffee, thereby improving the livelihoods of over 130,000 forest coffee producers. The project is funded by High Water Global.

The project, dubbed the Sustainable Forest Coffee Value Chain Development Project, makes use of the PFM (participatory forest management) approach, which Farm Africa has been developing for over two decades. The approach, bringing together local communities and local government, while protecting biodiversity, intends to enable communities to harvest wild coffee. Farm Africa will deploy staff to work with existing participatory forest management cooperatives in Chora woreda (district) and in the Buno-Bedele zone, offering training in the production and handling of quality coffee and support to build links to national and international markets and increase their bargaining ability.

The wild Arabica coffees growing in the region have good potential to command high prices nationally and internationally, but local coffee farmers have been largely unable to realize this potential. The local coffee market is currently dominated by local brokers and traders, who pay farmers low prices for their coffee. Without access to alternative markets, farmers have sought to increase their incomes by increasing the volumes of coffee sold. The unsustainable expansion of coffee plantations is endangering the forest.

Working with Oromia Cooperative Bank, the project will help the cooperatives gain access to credit to enable them to invest in developing their coffee businesses to enable them to deliver the high quality of coffee demanded by the international specialty coffee market, according to Farm Africa.

Source: FBC