BONN — Qahwa World
The Global Coffee Platform (GCP) has launched an unprecedented alliance with a collective €2 million investment, bringing together leading global coffee companies and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). This initiative is designed to address the structural and environmental challenges facing smallholder coffee farmers in Kenya and Uganda by improving their livelihoods, bolstering their climate resilience, and ensuring the sector is prepared for new European Union regulations. The companies participating in this alliance include ECOM, JDE Peet’s, Louis Dreyfus Company, ofi, SUCDEN, Taylors of Harrogate, and Touton.
This undertaking comes at a critical time, as farmers in both nations face existential challenges: earning significantly less than a living income, which limits their capacity to invest in their farms. Estimates indicate that current coffee yields are often less than a quarter of their full potential due to factors such as old, unmaintained trees, and insufficient last-mile extension systems that fail to deliver adequate training in Good Agricultural Practices. Compounding this is the imminent threat of losing market access to major importing regions if they fail to comply with new regulations, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D)—a risk that increases the likelihood of the next generation abandoning the sector.
To tackle these systemic issues, the program, running between 2025 and 2027, focuses on piloting and expanding innovative solutions to bridge the gap in last-mile agricultural extension services. The goal is to reach an additional 18,000 farmers currently outside of existing sustainability schemes. The ambition is to achieve a 20% increase in farmer coffee yields and a 10% increase in income by the end of 2027. GCP Executive Director Annette Pensel affirmed that the support from BMZ was crucial in de-risking private sector investment, noting that this collaboration represents a significant step forward in maximizing pooled investment for the broader national coffee sectors.
The work in Uganda builds on the successful “Youth for Coffee” collective action initiative. The program will expand to establish 75 new Youth Business Units, employing 150 youths to provide vital farm services like rehabilitation, rejuvenation, and agroforestry, focusing on the rehabilitation of approximately 487,500 coffee trees. To ensure the long-term sustainability of these units, they will be linked directly to existing supply chains, establishing a future client base for their services. Correspondingly, the work in Kenya focuses on enhancing governance and market transparency. This includes training and certifying 40 new Master Trainers by the Coffee Research Institute (CRI) to be linked with cooperatives, such as the Othaya Cooperative, to train 8,000 farmers using the National Sustainability Curricula. A key intervention involves updating the price tracking tool used by the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) to increase price transparency, allowing farmers to better forecast their income and promoting more efficient cooperative practices.
A vital aspect of the investment is supporting regulatory compliance. The program is dedicated to assisting both countries in improving their preparedness for EUDR and CS3D through facilitating EUDR Taskforce convenings and sector sensitization via the Kenya and Uganda Coffee Platforms. This focus is considered crucial for securing continued access to key European markets. This alliance forms part of GCP’s Collective Action for Farmer Prosperity, leveraging the expertise of the private sector members in collaboration with the Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains Initiative (SASI), which is funded by the BMZ and implemented by GIZ. The GCP-affiliated Country Platforms in Kenya and Uganda will lead the coordination to ensure that lessons learned feed directly into national coffee discussions, supporting each country’s Collective Action Plan for Farmer Prosperity.
