Tanzania

One of Sustainable Harvest's newest developments is to help coffee farmers living near the Gombe region of Tanzania, in a place called Kigoma. Sustainable Harvest has cuppers, agronomists and training staff that help the 2,700 growers learn how to create coffee that meets the standards of the specialty market, and get better prices for their work in the process. As a result, the farmers are being asked to protect the region around the Gombe chimpanzee reserve from further deforestation. The remote area of the Gombe region of Tanzania is a perfect coffee growing environment, but farmers traditionally used inefficient methods to soak, ferment and pulp their beans, wasting precious water and resulting in coffee of inconsistent quality that sold for a low price. With poor incomes from coffee, farmers were tempted to convert their plantations to other crops, cutting down the shade cover in the process. This results in encroachment on the Gombe Park and threatens its chimpanzee population – one of the few remaining in Africa. While the chimps can coexist peacefully with coffee, other crops such as corn or cassava result in a loss of tree cover and increased soil erosion; these crops also attract the chimps, bringing them and humans into conflict. To combat these issues, Sustainable Harvest introduced three technologies to increase the income of these coffee farmers:

Water-efficient coffee mills (“eco-pulping” machines) will enable the farmers to process coffee at a consistently high quality with relatively little input of scarce water;

Cupping equipment (for roasting and tasting samples) will enable them to appreciate the quality and value of their coffee; and,

Barcode readers linked to computer databases will allow them to record their quality assessments, manage coffee stores, and communicate with buyers and roasters outside of Tanzania, empowering the growers to manage their production for maximum profit.