During celebrations to mark the fourth Rwanda Coffee Day in Gihombo Sector, Nyamasheke District last week, participants shared a pot of coffee as part of the day’s refreshments. Strange as it may seem, many of the farmers confessed it was their first time to drink Rwanda’s specialty coffee, yet they are the ones who grow the crop.

The annual Rwanda Coffee Day is a five-year plan that seeks to promote local consumption, as well as improve production and quality along the value chain. Normally, farmers work hard to produce quality coffee but the majority of them have never tasted their own produce, according to National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB).

According to NAEB, besides focusing on increasing coffee quality and the quantity, there is also a need to boost local consumption of the beverage as this helps expand the market for the beverage.

"It’s in this regard that farmers and other stakeholders share a cup of coffee with the leaders during the Rwanda Coffee Day, and receive packets of processed coffee for home consumption,” said the NAEB communication officer, Pie Ntwali.

He told Business Times on Friday that they are encouraging people to drink Rwanda’s coffee instead of brands like Nescafe "so that we save the money spent on importation of coffee to do other things”.

"We are importing Nescafe, yet it is of similar quality as Rwanda’s specialty coffee,” he noted. He said promoting domestic coffee consumption will make Rwanda’s coffee more competitive and widen the market for the beans.

"We are mainly relying on the international market to sell our coffee because Rwandans do not drink the beverage. That’s why we have to promote coffee drinking among Rwandans,” he said. He noted that increased local consumption is essential in coffee production and marketing.

According to NAEB, only about one per cent of the coffee is consumed locally, while the target is to have 2 per cent of domestic coffee consumption by 2017. Ntwari said the last four Rwanda Coffee Days have contributed to the increase in domestic coffee consumption through promotion measures.  

Simeon Ngendahayo, the managing director of West Hills Coffee, a specialty coffee producing company in Western Province, called for more initiatives to promote local coffee consumption.

Ntwali said there is a programme, where coffee is packed in small packages that are affordable to farmers, as is the case with tea leaves. "These are initiatives by individual investors who want to produce for the local market at affordable prices so that Rwandans can access coffee ountrywide,” he said.

However, there is still a big challenge of affordability. Theopiste Nyiramahoro, the president of the Rwanda Coffee Cooperative Federation (RCCF), told Business Times that farmers do not consume coffee because it is expensive.

"After coffee has been processed and refined, it becomes very expensive for most farmers,” she said. Nyiramahoro also said, in the Rwandan culture, coffee has for long been perceived largely as an export commodity, while other people avoided it "because it causes sleep disorders.”

"Coffee was said to prevent the consumer from sleeping. Yet, research has since discoverd that coffee has some nutrients and stimulates thinking,” the RCCF chief, which consists of 86 cooperatives with over 17,000 farmers in the country, said on Thursday.

She applauded the move to enable farmers drink coffee, saying it will encourage them to care for the crop very well and improve productivity and quality, as well as promote a coffee drinking culture in the country. Nyiramahoro added that the practice will boost the local market for the crop and eventually lead to improved farmer-gate prices for farmers.

However, many of the farmers interviewed by Business Times said the beans are bought at low prices them, yet processed coffee particularly specialty coffee is out of reach of those that grow the crop. This, they said, is one of the reasons many Rwandan people do not drink coffee.

The farm-gate price of coffee cherries is about Rwf200 a kilogramme, according to the National Agriculture Export Development Board (NAEB). However, a kilogramme of roasted and processed coffee goes for up to Rwf7,000. "We cannot afford the coffee,” said Nyamurinda Ezechiel, a coffee farmer in Nyamasheke District.

"We have been growing coffee for decades, but we could not drink it as farmers. However, on the Rwanda Coffee Day, we were given coffee as refreshments and most of us like it. Tasting the fruit of our sweat has given us morale to promote coffee drinking in our communities,’ he said.

According to the National Agriculture Exports Development Board (NAEB), last year 4,440 tonnes of fertilisers were applied in coffee, representing 56% of the needed fertilisers. This year, 5,000 tonnes of fertilisers will be applied compared to 7,000 needed tonnes.

Last year, 22,000 tonnes of coffee was produced in the country of which some 18,793 tonnes were exported and generated over $62 million. The production and revenues in 2015 increased by 35 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, compared to 2014, according to figures from NAEB.

This year the country projects to produce 29,000 tonnes of coffee, of which 59 per cent will be fully-washed.