Dispatches
Rwandan Coffee: When time is money, custom coffee cargo bikes are a farmer’s best friend
April 19, 2008
Once a coffee cherry is harvested, the bean inside the cherry swiftly begins to degrade. Within 7 hours, fermentation substantially decreases the value of the farmer’s crop, effectively melting it from premium product to c-list dregs as minutes pass. It’s an agricultural version of “24″ without the standoffs and screaming into cell phones - instead there are big bags loaded with coffee cherries and 5 miles of dicey roads between the farmer on foot and the finish line at the washing station. The speed of a farmer’s delivery directly influences whether their harvest is a windfall or a pittance, determining a number of financial consequences, including whether they can afford to send their kids to school or not.
Tick tock, indeed.
Mountain bike pioneer Tom Ritchey founded Project Rwanda after a trip to the region in 2005, partnering with SPREAD to assist Rwanda’s rural farmers by “furthering the economic development of Rwanda through initiatives based on the bicycle as a tool and symbol of hope.” Ritchey created a custom cargo bike created for coffee farmers, designed tough enough to endure Rwanda’s rugged terrain and strong enough to haul up to 400 lbs.
SPREAD, Bikes to Rwanda, Vision Finance, and Scallywags Bike Shop united behind the farmers’ cause and, thanks to their efforts, there are over 1,000 coffee cargo bikes in Rwanda, empowering farmers to get their crops to washing stations more quickly, ensuring that they get optimal payment for their efforts. Through a micro-credit system offered within coffee cooperatives, farmers are able to pay for their bikes with the additional income they earn from the increased quality of their coffee. In addition, for the numerous days that coffee doesn’t have to be sped to market, coffee bikes contribute to a better quality of life for farmers and their families, enabling them to haul anything you can imagine without the burden of fueling up a gas tank - construction materials, crates of chickens, treetops of bananas, furniture, family members… really, you have to see it to believe it…
A round of applause to the tremendous efforts and overwhelmingly positive results from the work of SPREAD and Project Rwanda that have helped invigorate the economy, improving lives and elevating a product and profession that Rwandans can be extremely proud of… well done.
More information at: http://www.spreadproject.org/
SPREAD, Rwanda: Coffee awakens a national economy
April 19, 2008
In a world of large scale coffee production, coffee farming in Rwanda has always been a very personal endeavor.
Introduced by the Germans in the 1900s, coffee in Rwanda is cultivated on small, family run farms where coffee plant counts average in the low hundreds, but for decades, the Rwandan coffee market had been state run and coffee was sent into local markets with very little in the way of quality standards. Farmers traded on volume, not quality, so inferior product, along with dirt and rocks, were sent to retail assuring a reputation of mediocrity for Rwandan coffee on the international market.
In the years following the 1994 genocide, all governmental operations were reconsidered and certain programs, including national coffee production, were completely overhauled. SPREAD (Sustaining Partnerships to Enhance Rural Enterprise), a USAID-funded development alliance of institutes, industries and NGOs, helped identify Rwandan coffee as a potentially powerful economic driver for the recovering nation: a widely produced crop that could command top dollar if very high levels of quality control and premium products were properly marketed and consistently delivered retail.
SPREAD supports coffee co-ops that use farmers’ collective selling power along with the creation of coffee washing stations that enforce quality control from the moment coffee arrives from the field as cherries (the bean itself the seed of the fruit of the coffee plant). Farmers are paid on pure weight of quality cherries while substandard cherries and detritus are discarded. By significantly raising the quality of Rwandan coffee, the international coffee market rewards producers by paying 3 to 5 times the price per pound for superior product.
Dr. Tim Schilling, director and program coordinator of SPREAD, sees Rwanda as a coffee growing paradise, explaining that Rwandan coffee crops are 100% small-holder produced. Small crops allow farmers to seriously fuss over their plants and the care the predominantly heirloom plants receive here results in premium product with a unique flavor profile that rightfully commands top dollar on the international coffee market.
One of the finest examples of Rwanda’s success in these pursuits has been the elevation of the Bourbon varietal grown in the Maraba area. Within recent years, specialty coffee companies have developed a keen regard for Maraba Bourbon and will pay for particularly esteemed harvests at prices previously unheard of for African coffee on the international market.
Good for just a few coffee producers? Consider this: based on recent estimates, there are 500,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda (a country of about 9 million) and coffee-related income that affects 40 to 50 percent of Rwanda’s population.
With the increasing focus on high quality Rwandan coffee, the farmers received a powerful education in the volatile nature of their crop and the very direct relationship of time to money. Anyone who’s ever used a messenger service to deliver documents in a gridlocked city can appreciate the can-do of a bike in time critical environments.
Enter the coffee bike. Follow me….