Rwanda: Farmers boost profits with “coffee bikes” (Edmonton Journal and projectrwanda.org)
Date Posted: January 28th, 2008
And this helps him earn more money. The faster the cherries get to the washing station, the better the quality, and the better the price for the farmer. If they can get their cherries to the washing station quickly, farmers can earn 15 US cents per kilogram.According to the organization Sustaining Partnership to Enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development, there are almost half a million small-scale coffee growers in Rwanda. The average plantation has 200 coffee trees. These trees are the main source of income for coffee farmers.
The idea of a coffee bike came from an American NGO called Project Rwanda. An entrepreneur and cyclist from California invented the bikes. They are specially designed with a large carrying platform over the back wheel, making the bike ¾ of meter longer than the average bike and are easy to maintain. As only one in 40 Rwandans can afford a good bicycle, Project Rwanda helps farmers to obtain microcredit loans to purchase coffee bikes.
But it’s not only coffee growers who benefit. Project Rwanda also trains mechanics to assemble and repair the bikes. This ensures the sustainability of the coffee bike project and creates jobs for Rwandans. So far, Project Rwanda has distributed almost 1,000 coffee bikes.
As for Célestin, he figures that his coffee bike cuts one hour off the time he spends transporting his beans to the washing station. What does he do with that hour he has gained? He spends it on other income generating activities.
Celestin riding a Coffee Bike. source: projectrwanda.org
January 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
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February 13th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Thank you to Peter Kettler from the Coffee Lifeline Project for sharing the following information on another project, which utilizes the power of radio in an effort to aid that region’s coffee farmers.
I began the Coffee Lifeline project in spring of ‘04 with the original intent of providing remote coffee farming communities in Rwanda access to international market information as an attempt to prevent them from being taken advantage of by unscrupulous “coyotes”, those people who gather up the picked cherries from farmers and deliver them to processing mills. In partnership with the Freeplay Foundation and the USAID sponsored SPREAD project, we have so far delivered more than 700 self-powered (crank and solar-powered radios) to farmer listening groups, made up of 20-30 farmers, in every coffee-producing sector in the country. We are scheduled to deliver another 600 over the next year.
While the original goal was to provide market information, we quickly realized that we could use the medium of radio to broadcast much needed information on a variety of subjects to the farming community. In May of ‘07, through a partnership with Radio Salus, a community-based radio station based in Butare, we began broadcasting the weekly show, Imbere Heza (Bright Future) to the more than 450,000 farmers throughout Rwanda. Besides current market conditions, we also broadcast information regarding modern agronomy practices, HIV / AIDS prevention, women’s health issues, organic and Fair Trade certification, co-op news and info, stories from other coffee-producing countries as well as a weekly children’s story corner.
Last year we also formed a partnership with Developing Radio Partners, a foundation begun by Bill Siemering who was one of the founding fathers of National Public Radio here in the United States. DRP helps to support and in some cases create community-based radio in economically challenged regions around the world. Our plan going forward is to create a web of independent broadcast facilities in numerous coffee-producing countries around the world, linked through shared agricultural and cultural information that will hopefully strengthen the many indigenous communities that rely on coffee farming for their main source of income. Our efforts in Rwanda has become the model for this project.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
[...] use: -“Liberia: Farmers rebuild agriculture sector against the odds” (FRW#9, February 2008) -“Rwanda: Farmers boost profits with ‘coffee bikes’” (FRW#8, January [...]