Between now and 26th Sep 2019 every dollar donated to this cause will be generously matched by the MACQUARIE GROUP FOUNDATION under the terms of their grant matching policy

Coffee is grown by an estimated 9 million farmers in East Africa - most of them smallholders for whom coffee might be the only reliable source of income. In Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, the average farmer has less than 300 coffee trees - earning $100-300 for an entire household in a year. Most farmers have never been taught that a coffee tree requires careful management in order to produce an optimal yield. At Kahawatu Foundation we teach farmers how to apply Good Agricultural Practices using nothing more than the labor and resources on their farms. Our experience shows that the poorest farmers can double their yield within one year - and the best farmers can ultimately increase their production 3-5 times. Kahawatu has developed methods for training large numbers of small farmers in Farmer Field Schools. Our agronomists encourage farmers to form groups of 30 and help them elect a Lead Farmer to represent the group. Every lead farmer is taken through a full coffee training program which teaches them the good agricultural practices of pruning, mulching, soil management, pest control and harvesting. The leader farmer's farm becomes a demo plot for his or her group. Crucially, it's a place where each lead farmer can now transmit the same learnings to other members, creating a virtuous cycle of improved practices over time. One agronomist can train 100 Lead Farmers in a year. That's an outreach of 3000 coffee farmers - or as many as 15,000 people who's lives can be improved through better coffee yields, better quality and better payments. Help us hire more agronomists through this campaign. Every USD4,000 raised, allows us to hire an agronomist for a year.