The minimum price at which quality coffee cherries will be bought from farmers has increased by a staggering 65% from Rwf248 a kilogramme last year to Rwf410 a kilogramme today. This will enable the 400,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda, who depend on it for their livelihoods, to get higher income – at least Rwf162 more on each kilogramme they sell. The new price was announced on February 11, 2022, by the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB), and takes effect beginning the same date the announcement was issued. Also, the development is good news for the country’s coffee sector as more income will likely motivate farmers to take care of the crop for increased yields, which in turn could help the country to earn more export revenues. Speaking to The New Times, Verediyana Uwamurera, a farmer and head of Dukunda Kawa Nyagisozi, a cooperative of over 300 coffee farmers in Nyagisozi Sector, Nyaruguru District, said that the new price is a major boost to farmers. She indicated that the previous price (Rwf248 a kilogramme of coffee cherries) was not adequately helping farmers as it was covering their investments such coffee farming practices such as mulching and fertilise application, and they remained with almost no profit. “We are very happy with the new price because it means a farmer will get profit,” she said, adding that they had earlier appealed for an increase in price. The move follows the good performance of the country’s coffee exports chiefly fueled by the increase in prices at the international market in the second quarter of the current fiscal year (2021/2022). This period covered the months of October, November, and December of 2021. During the second quarter of 2021/2022, Rwanda’s coffee export revenues went up by 47 per cent to $38.4 million from $26.1 million registered in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year, according to the latest statistics released by NAEB on February 1 this year. The average price for a kilogramme of coffee at the international market rose by 32 per cent to $4.9/kilo from $3.7/kilo in the previous period under review. Last week, Fulgence Sebazungu, the president of the Rwanda Coffee Cooperatives Federation (RCCF) told The New Times that the rising prices at the international market were good news for coffee farmers as their produce is bought based on such prices. He suggested that the price given to farmers for their coffee cherries was likely to jump following the increase in prices at the international market, indicating that NAEB, farmers’ and processors’ representatives were negotiating a new price in January this year. “When coffee prices increase at international markets, the farmers benefit from it,” he said, adding that this motivates farmers to grow the crop as they get value from it. Coffee price trend This is the third year that coffee prices have gone up after a decline registered in 2019. In January last year, the coffee cherry farm gate price rose by 14.8 per cent from Rwf216 in January 2020 to Rwf248 kilogramme. But, in 2019, the farm gate price on a kilogramme of coffee cherries dropped to Rwf190 from Rwf267 in 2018. To protect coffee farmers from incurring losses in 2019, the Government listened to farmers’ plea by spending over Rwf5 billion in order to fully subsidise fertilisers that they needed that year. It is to note that in 2020-2021, Rwanda exported more than 16.8 million kilogrammes of coffee which generated over $61.5 million, representing an increase of 1.83 per cent compared to $60.4 million that was earned from exporting more than 19.7 million kilogrammes of coffee in the previous fiscal year. This small increase in coffee revenues was attributed to the good price of coffee registered in 2020-2021, according to NAEB data. Rwanda targets to earn $95 million from coffee exports by 2024. The biggest markets for Rwandan coffee are Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, Nigeria, China, Germany and South Korea.
