ABSTRACT: An insight into one of Rwanda’s fastest-growing and most successful industries; the farming and exporting of high-quality specialty coffee. The article documents USAID’s partnership with SPREAD, an organization intimately associated with the renaissance of the Rwandan coffee sector.
FAST FACTS:
- Name: SPREAD (Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development), formerly PEARL (Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda through Linkages). http://spreadproject.com/home.php.
- Founded: Texas A & M University ; PEARL (2000), SPREAD (2006).
- Mission: “To rebuild agriculture institutions and their human resource base, to identify and implement strategies for rural income generation, and to use local Rwandan institutions and human resources to implement income generation strategies.”
- Type: Non-Profit.
- Annual Budget: $8.5 million over 5 years.
- CEO: Dr. Timothy Schilling.
- Number of employees: 12 professionals, 25 technicians.
- Headquarters: Butare, Rwanda.
- Employment Opportunities: n/a.
The tiny Central African nation of Rwanda is, however unjustly, most commonly known for two, wildly opposing reasons: the mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey and the ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ film, but also the tragic civil war that consumed the country in 1994 that resulted in the genocide of 800,000 people. In recent years, however, Rwanda is becoming increasingly cited as an ‘African success story’ of sorts, and nowhere is that more evident than in the rebirth of its coffee industry, in which a project of the U.S. Agency for International Development has been particularly instrumental.
USAID’s involvement in Rwandan agribusiness began in 2000 with a project called the Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda through Linkages (PEARL) and a $10 million six-year project designed to rejuvenate and maximize the potential of Rwanda’s unique brand of coffee. The concept included working with local farming cooperatives to improve the production and marketing of the coffee, as well as introducing international quality standards and controlled consistency. As PEARL’s website explains, the idea was to “create cooperatives whose farmers, 20% of whom are genocide widows or orphans, learn a multistep process for producing gourmet coffee that involves harvesting only the ripest beans and washing, sorting and drying them at new community washing stations.”
The Rwandan coffee industry had been decimated by the civil war and consequently neglected, so in 2002 (the year that the coffee sector was liberalized by the new president, Paul Kagame) the total coffee export was $0. According to the Rwanda Coffee Board, by 2006, four years into PEARL, exports had risen to 2000 tonnes of coffee that brought in $8.5 million. Such success led to a further $6 million five-year plan, pledged from USAID in the same year, and has already helped to double the income of 40,000 Rwandan coffee farmers, as well as helping with the sensitive task of post-conflict reconciliation within Rwanda’s communities. These achievements are principally attributed to SPREAD’s success in ‘pooling’ local farmland, work-forces and resources into a single cooperative, and encouraging a more stringent quality control. Farmers were trained in how to select and cultivate the finest coffee beans, how to protect the crops against disease and pests, and how to secure bank loans and set up and manage accounts. SPREAD acts as a ‘conduit’ between such local cooperatives and international coffee companies from the US and EU’s private sectors. In terms of accessing the international markets, Maraba coffee – name for the town near Butare where the project began – now has a customer base in American and European markets. In 2004, the British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s began stocking Rwandan coffee in over 350 of it chains across the country, and Rwandan coffee has been featured as a ‘Black Apron Exclusive’ by Starbucks. However, such an industry is fiercely competitive, and Rwanda is competing not only with the more established East African coffee producers such as Kenya and Tanzania, but also those from Latin America and Asia.
When the initial PEARL contract came up for renewal in 2006 financial restrictions led USAID to merge PEARL with the Agribusiness Development Assistance Project in Rwanda (ADAR), forming Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development (SPREAD).
Land set aside for coffee production, near Butare, Huye Province, Rwanda
The director of the SPREAD project and head of Texas A & M University’s International Agricultural Programs (the organization that had initially won the contract to manage PEARL), Dr. Timothy Schilling, attributes the project’s success to hard work and clearly identifying where that work needs to be done. “We focus on only a few ‘hot’ sectors,” he explained in an interview, “and work the complete value chain from inputs, through production, processing, transport, sales, marketing, and shipping.” The 12 full-time professionals and 25 technicians working for SPREAD work abide by the principals of encouraging and ensuring rigid production and processing protocols for every phase of the process.
Whilst the financial resources are not currently available to employ additional staff at SPREAD, there are opportunities available for partnering. As Dr. Schilling noted, “since we’re already here with offices, vehicles, internet, staff, etc., it’s easy for another organization to come in and set up shop with us since the overhead is so low.” In the past, organizations such as Transfair USA, Growers First, Coffee Lifeline, and Project Rwanda have all partnered with either SPREAD or PEARL, with the only criteria being that the organization shares a similar objective and philosophy.
As for future plans and initiatives, although SPREAD already works with 10 farming cooperatives across Rwanda replicating the Maraba brand and methods, there are tentative plans afoot to expand over the country’s borders. Texas A & M has recently signed a contract to export many of the concepts and approaches that have made SPREAD a success to neighboring Burundi, a country similar to Rwanda in terms of both the tragedy of its recent history but also its favorable geography and climate for coffee. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has also been mentioned in terms of its huge potential for coffee growing, but the current political situation is too insecure.
As for the future of Rwanda’s coffee industry, Dr. Schilling is both optimistic and pragmatic; “There are 500,000 coffee farming families. Multiplied by family size of seven (the Rwandan average), that’s almost half of the entire population,” he explains. “If you can do things to raise the price of coffee to the farmer by just one dime per pound, the farmer will increase his/her income by over 25 percent.”
Rwanda appears to have firmly established itself as a key coffee producer as the country prepares to host the highly-respected ‘Cup of Excellence’ coffee-tasting competition and auction in 2008. Whilst coffee production has been the centerpiece of PEARL/SPREAD’s commitments, there are also plans afoot to follow similar principles for two of the country’s agricultural exports, cassava, spices, tea crops and chili peppers, and who’s to say they cannot achieve similar success?
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