Happy Coffee Bean is the Seeds for Development coffee project
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The coffee we sell today is produced by the farmers of The Bukonzo Joint Co-Operative in Kyarumba, a small town about 30 miles from Kasese.
The money from selling the Bukonzo coffee goes to supporting our projects in West Nile and Amuru.
Our goal is to bring you bring you our delicious West Nile Arabica Coffee and Amuru Robusta directly from the farmers to your cup.
Bukonzo Arabica
Fair Trade Organic Arabica coffee from the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda.
Bukonzo Joint is a co-operative union owned by its members. They are currently made up of 5,500 small farms about 40 kms from Kasese in western Uganda, where they grow high-quality, organically grown, hand-picked coffee.
We met them last year and were really impressed by their commitment to drive poverty out of their lives. They are really motivated, friendly and were so welcoming.
We also visited the health centre they are building (from the coffee money) and had the chance to meet the farmers, visit their processing plant and be super impressed by everything they have achieved and are doing.
West Nile Arabica
High in the hills above a small town called Nebbi in the West Nile region of northern Uganda something is happening, something so exciting that it can’t stay hidden from the world.
Thousands of smallholder farmers are growing the most delicious organic Arabica coffee, and we are drinking it - bringing it directly from the farm to our cups!
The farmers are receiving seeds from Seeds for Development and we are working to accelerate their move from subsistence to commercial farming with coffee. At the moment they sell their coffee at the farm gate for a very low price. They are working hard to pull together and go to market collectively for a better price. We have bought our first coffee from them and are now working out how to bring it back in containers to sell to you on their behalf directly from their farms.
The coffee is absolutely delicious.
Amuru Robusta
In 2011 we planted 30,000 seeds in Timothy's nursery at his Kasenge-Riverford Organic centre and in the spring of 2012 transported the up to the farmers in the north. Each of the 286 farmers involved planted 200 seedlings on half an acre of land.
Here are photos of our coffee from the first seedlings emerging to today.
The farmers are now harvesting their first crop. We are helping find a market in Gulu and our long term goal is to buy it ourselves and bring it home to be enjoyed around the world!
The farmers have never grown coffee before, so everything is new. This is both good and bad for us! Bad because they don't know what to do, good because it means they can learn the best way to do everything.