Cycles, cycles, cycles …

That’s quite a long time you did not hear from us… sorry!

From now on, it is hard for us to write climate related information on this blog, since we do not want to expose too much information which the companies we work for would not like.

One of the greatest differences between Kenya and the Netherlands lays in perception of the word ‘coffee’. In Kenya, we learned at the farms that coffee is seen as gold, as cash.

“Why did you chose the crop coffee?” “Because it gives me money.” “Which activity do you like the most regarding cultivating coffee?” “Picking the cherries when they are ripe.” “Why do you like this activity the most?” “Because the cherries bring me money.” We did hear other explanations, like “When I’m bored, I just go to my chamber (farm in Kikuyu)  and start any activity” but the main message remains the financial part.

However, in the Netherlands the perception of coffee is definitely about the drink. A warm drink which helps you to stay awake whenever you need it. Asking someone out on a date but also asking whether someone needs  a break, both contain the words: “Shall we have a coffee?”

The farmers do not know how we drink our coffee and especially not how much, and both the farmers and we have no idea about the journey our coffee has travelled before we purchased it.

Before the form of coffee as we know it, there has happened a lot. It starts at the coffee farm: the tree produces flowers, the flowers turn into green berries, the green berries turn into red cherries and the farmer picks these cherries. The farmer brings the cherries to the factory (which belongs to a cooperative). At the factory they sort their cherries into two categories: good (the red cherries) and bad (the under ripe, the overripe and the diseased). The good cherries go to the weighing station at the factory, there it is weighed and written down how much comes from which farmer. The cherries go through the wet mill, where the red pulp is removed and two yellowish beans remain: the parchment. The parchment is dried on drying beds in the factory and then stored. The bad cherries are taken home by the farmer, where he/she has to dry the cherries him/herself. When they are dry, the farmer takes it to the factory again, weighs and leaves the dry cherries there.

The factory sells the dried parchment and the dried cherries to a marketing agent (for instance CMS). The marketing agent has a dry mill where the two categories are separately processed. After this process, the beans have lost their yellowish skin which result in green beans.

These beans are sold through an auction to several roasters. This is the point where the farmers receive the payment for their coffee. Up front they have no idea how much this will be, because this depends on the market at that particular time. Then, the roasters roast the beans which results in coffee beans as we know it!

All farms we have visited were self sufficient in their own way. Two examples:

• In the farms, water tanks are placed to collect rain water. They (all we have seen) do this by fixing pipes to the roofs of the buildings, leading it to the tank. The harvested rainwater is  used for washing and for drinking. Other farmers had multiple tanks, for which they use one to irrigate the kitchen garden.

• The farmer cultivates Napier grass, this grass is used as food for the cow. The cow gives milk (to sell and to consume by the farmer) and leaves feces behind. The feces are used as manure, to fertilize the coffee trees. This organic fertilizer increases the quantity and quality of the coffee, which results in more money for the farmer, this money he/she can use for buying seeds to plant more Napier grass.

We met one farmer, she was a leading (promoting) farmer, active in a water resource association. She founded this together with a few others, using the Green Belt Movement as an inspiration*. The Green Belt Movement is a Kenyan environmental organization, empowering communities (especially women) to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods. This means, apart from Western organizations, Kenyans are also trying to improve these matters, although not all farmers are able to look broader than just their own farm. Trying to get the smallholder farmers to see and understand the bigger picture will be an important challenge.

Today, we (team Kenya) closed our research for now, no more interviews or focusgroups with farmers. Team Netherlands is compiling all of our findings into a report. We are very thankful to everyone participating in this research, with now especially thanks to Regina, our interpreter, Thomas, our driver for the past two weeks, and of course all the farmers!!

Our next step is to develop a few concepts and finally choose one concept to develop into a working prototype. Team Netherlands then will transform in team Kenya and test the product with the farmers we have spoken to already. Today at CMS (Coffee Management Services) we verified a few of the results and made a start with the implementation plan, on which the new team Netherlands will work coming month.

* http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/