Celestin Hakizimana, 51, a resident of Giti Sector, Gicumbi District has been a coffee farmer for the last 30 years.

For a long time, however, he was earning peanuts – an average of Rwf100, 000 from his half-a hectare farm on a good season, only enough to enable him put food on the table and afford certain basics like clothing.  

That was the situation until 2005 when Ocir Café (now the National Agricultural Export Development Board or Naeb) came into the picture. Then, Naeb started a coffee demonstration farm in the neighbourhood for local farmers to learn from the ‘centre of excellence’.

But they also provided coffee farmers around the area with free pruning equipment, seedlings and a field extension officer for technical advice.

"Since then my fortunes changed and I started registering far higher proceeds, nearly double the previous revenue. Thanks to Naeb support, I was able to expand my farmland to three hectares and I even planted another 500 coffee trees,” he said.

Today, Hakizimana says his farm accommodates about 2,000 coffee trees, which fetch him an average of Rwf800, 000 per season – eight times more than his previous revenue.

From the proceeds he has been able to construct himself a six-room house worth Rwf2 million, is able to pay his family’s health insurance premiums in time, was able to send all his three children to "good” schools – with one of them now a Masters graduate while the other two have graduated with Bachelor’s degrees.

"I have also bought two cows, which do not only give us milk but also manure for the farm,” he says.

Hakizimana adds that he has also bought another five hectares of land, where he plans to grow banana.

Best practices

Mary Aline Uwizera, a Naeb coffee field extension officer in Gicumbi, says a number of programmes have been rolled out to boost coffee farming in the district.

For instance, between December 2013 and March 2014, her office gave out 186,000 seedlings, 80 litres of insecticide, pruning and spraying equipment worth Rwf950, 000 to farmers free of charge, she says.

Every year, she adds, the best coffee farmer in the district is rewarded with a cow, pruning and spraying equipment.

Felicien Bahizi, a Naeb coffee support production officer, in charge of Kigali and the Northern Province, says every village in his zone has a coffee demonstration farm, where residents learn best farming practices such as mulching, pruning, spraying and harvesting.

He explains that because of these efforts, coffee washing centres in the area have since grown from 19 to 23 (in the last five years).

Maurice Habiyambere, the operations manager of Project for Rural Income through Export (Price), a Naeb initiative, says about Rwf1.9 billion was dedicated to the project alone during the 2013-14 financial year.

Statistics from Naeb indicate that coffee acreage in the area increased by 10,000 hectares between 2013 and 2014, increasing the national acreage to 42,000 hectares. 

And an estimated 10,000 farmers are said to have directly benefited from the various coffee demonstration farms countrywide in the same period. About 400,000 people are currently involved in coffee farming countrywide.

 Farm gate price

But Rwandan coffee farmers are not without challenges.

Hakizimana said the Rwf300 farm gate price currently being offered for a kilogramme of coffee beans is quite little compared to the energy and time invested.

"We would be happy if the prices were revised upwards, say to Rwf500 (a kilo),” he said.

He also complained about the Rwf20 charged by Naeb on every kilogramme of coffee sold – for fertilisers purpose. 

"The rate charged remains the same even when market prices for coffee have fallen.”

Pascal Mudahinyuka, the Gicumbi District agent of Enas, a private coffee buying and processing firm, said farmers need to put in more effort and improve the quality of their coffee so as to fetch better returns.

Hakizimana also decried the prevalence of coffee berry borer, a pest that attacks the cash crop, especially during the dry season.

Coffee is arguably the second most traded commodity globally, after oil, but is highly vulnerable to price fluctuations dictated by economic conditions in major consuming countries and global supply trends.

"Coffee prices at the world market keep fluctuating week in week out; for instance, last Saturday (August 23) a kilogramme went for $4.25, while two weeks earlier it was at $3.7,” said Robinah Uwera , the Naeb director for marketing.

Naeb says the number of coffee washing stations in country increased from 2020 in 2013 to 229 in 2014.

In 2013, the country had an output of 18,300 tonnes of green coffee, earning about $53 million in exports.

Experts expect output to increase to 23,000 tonnes this year.

Last year, demand for coffee declined by almost 18 per cent globally, leading to a sharp fall in prices to as low as $2.66 per kilogramme of processed coffee beans.

Gakenke District in Northern Province won this year’s Cup of Excellence during a recent competition to recognise the best Rwandan coffee.

The event was organised by Naeb in collaboration with Alliance of Coffee Excellence; the Ministry of Trade and Industry; Development Bank of Rwanda; Starbucks; and I&M Bank.

Switzerland and the U.S are currently the leading consumers of Rwandan coffee.