The Thiriku Cooperative smallholder farmers

The Mount Kenya region is often referred to as the ‘Champagne’ region of Kenyan coffee production. Recently, however, low yields, poor quality coffee, and a lack of transparency from buyers has caused farmers to destroy their coffee trees in favor of other staple crops such as maize ( Standard Media ).

Working with the Thiriku Cooperative and its supply chain partners, Rockbern Coffee and Trabocca, the Rebuild Facility's returnable grant will finance the purchase of specialty coffee from smallholder farmers and support an innovative sourcing model that aims to prioritize smallholder livelihoods and regenerate the coffee growing landscape in the region. With the Rebuild Facility's support, smallholder farmers are forecast to increase volumes of coffee cherry sold to the Thiriku Cooperative fourfold - from 170,000 kilograms in the 2019/20 harvest season, to 700,000 kilograms in the upcoming season.

The Thiriku Coffee Growers Cooperative Society, located in Nyeri County in central Kenya, has an active membership of 1,192 smallholder farmers who grow coffee across 477 hectares of landscape on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdare mountain range. This year the Thiriku Cooperative is aiming to grow its membership to 1,500 smallholder farmers which would cover approximately 600 hectares.

The Thiriku Cooperative sells its specialty Arabica coffee to Rockbern Coffee, a Kenyan coffee exporter, which then exports the produce on behalf of Trabocca, a specialty coffee importer headquartered in Amsterdam. Rockbern and Trabocca have formed a partnership to bring a more direct coffee sourcing model to the Kenyan market.

The Rebuild Facility will provide a returnable grant to Rockbern which will finance coffee production in the fly crop and the main harvest of the 2021/22 season.

The interactive map below provides an overview of the journey of the specialty coffee from the Thiriku Cooperative all the way to Europe (as well as the US and Asia), where it is distributed to specialty coffee houses and micro-roasters.

Smallholder farmers in Kenya are losing confidence in coffee as a legitimate means to improve their livelihoods, demonstrated by the fact that current production levels represent a decline of more than 60% from peak production in 1987 ( Cosa, 201 6). Simultaneously, the younger generation is abandoning coffee as a future livelihood and heading for the cities. With no young farmers to learn how to tend to their coffee trees, the sector faces a knowledge drought that will be hard to recover from. 

Rockbern and Trabocca are pioneering a new approach by carrying out direct trade with Thiriku and committing to purchase coffee at guaranteed premium prices over a five-year period. The direct trade relationship also means they can pay farmers 3-4 months earlier than the standard payment cycle. Rockbern and Trabocca have four main objectives over the five-year programme:

• To promote good production practices that will ensure farmers’ safety and environmental sustainability.
• To improve the food security and economic livelihoods of the target farmers through coffee production.
• To increase the cherry yields per tree from the current 0.5/1 kg to 6 kgs per tree by December 2025.
• To ensure high cup quality of specialty premium grade and above (score of not less than 87) based on the Specialty Coffee Association  evaluation criteria .

The Rebuild Facility’s returnable grant will provide offtake security for the cooperative to ensure confidence in Rockbern and Trabocca’s regenerative model is maintained. Additionally, the returnable grant will facilitate Rockbern and Trabocca to scale-up the rejuvenation initiative to more farmers at a time when COVID-19 has led to stagnation in the market. 

Below is an overview of the environmental and livelihoods impact opportunities that the Rebuild Facility is aiming to secure through supporting the Thiriku Cooperative smallholder farmers.

The smallholder farmers of the Thiriku Cooperative grow coffee in land adjacent to the Aberdare National Park. The national park is home to diverse landscapes and wildlife. Within the mountainous peaks and deep valleys, bamboo forests and natural rainforests live many animals including lions, leopards, elephants, black rhinoceroses and over 250 bird species. The soil around the national park in this coffee growing region is renowned for its high fertility and good drainage during the rainy seasons.

The average plot size of Thiriku smallholders’ farmland is 0.4 hectares. Approximately 25% of this farmland is used for coffee production with the remaining land being used to grow staple crops such as maize, beans, potatoes and vegetables, as well as to keep cattle and grow fast-growing wood such as eucalyptus. As the diagram shows on the left, the Thiriku smallholders tend to separate each area within their farm. 

Low yields and uncertainty around prices have led to mismanagement of the coffee landscape which now requires an intensive rehabilitation program. In response, Rockbern and Trabocca have initiated a rejuvenation program that will allow the coffee trees to recover and sustainably improve on current yields of 0.5 to 1kg of cherry per tree, to 6kgs of cherry per tree.

Dr. Bernard Gichimu, Trabocca’s agronomist who is leading the capacity building programme, is working with farmers to demonstrate how it is possible to increase coffee yields while employing responsible agricultural practices, such as using organic fertilizer, integrating cover crops and carrying out canopy management.

As explained in the video below, in 2022 there are plans to move from rejuvenation to a regeneration phase. Rockbern and Trabocca will establish a nursery to grow coffee trees and shade trees so that farmers can purchase trees directly from the cooperative. The nursery will grow macadamia trees, which have been identified as the main species that will be used as part of the agroforestry system.

The coffee growing region is located in the foothills of Mount Kenya and is only 8km from the Aberdare National Park (see map to the right). The map also shows areas of increased deforestation since 2010 on the boundaries of the Aberdare National Park that lie adjacent to the Thiriku Cooperative. Rockbern and Trabocca's movement to reinstate regenerative coffee production will be crucial to ensuring this region maintains its high levels of tree cover and safeguards the protected areas that surround it. By improving smallholder livelihoods, there is less need for these farmers to encroach into the national parks in search of additional revenue.

Only 46% of the total 2,582 members of Thiriku Cooperative membership are actively engaged in producing and selling coffee. In other words, half of the members have lost confidence in coffee due to lack of price transparency, which means they are unable to plan their production cycles.

Under the traditional model, international companies often pay the farmers the full amount six months after the coffee is handed over. Under the new agreement, Rockbern and Trabocca commit to paying farmers once the coffee is loaded onto the vessel in Mombasa, which is normally around three months after farmers have passed on their coffee to the cooperative. Rockbern and Trabocca’s five-year commitment with the Thiriku Cooperative is starting to restore faith among the smallholder farmers, with production this year expected to triple from the 2020 harvest seasons as yields improve and farmers return to the cooperative. 

Price security is also proving an important incentive for smallholder farmers to engage in Rockbern and Trabocca’s regenerative coffee production model. To reflect the recent price spike on global coffee markets, Rockbern and Trabocca have increased their net price to EUR 0.91/kg (KES 115/kg) of coffee cherry for the 2021/22 season. This amount goes directly to the farmer and provides some security at times of market volatility. Rockbern and Trabocca's model also includes an additional EUR 0.12/kg (KES 15/kg of coffee cherry) to cover the operational costs associated with wet processing, salaries and other overheads. This transparent price incentive is in contrast to the traditional payment model in Kenya where coffee farmers are paid a gross price for their coffee cherry, with interest and wet processing costs then subtracted from the farmgate price, reducing the already slim margins for smallholder farmers.

Rockbern and Trabocca also aim to almost triple the number of active smallholder farmers that are part of the Thiriku Cooperative by 2025. As the chairman of the Thiriku Cooperative states below, the Rockbern and Trabocca partnership is already positively received among the cooperative members.

Rockbern and Trabocca are also supporting farmers and factory workers with a capacity building programme. Since December 2020, Bernard Gichimu has split the farmers into five zones to deliver training. There are six modules within the capacity building programme, as detailed in the image below.  

The commitment from the Rebuild Facility to provide finance to purchase from both the fly crop and main crop harvest in 2021 will secure income for smallholder farmers who are currently active within the cooperative. This will be crucial in stimulating further growth in years to come as farmers start gaining confidence that regenerative coffee production can provide a stable and improved livelihood for them and their families. 

The project will run from August 2021 to September 2022. For more information relating to this project please contact sam.stewart@systemiq.earth