Coffee+

Project description

Title: Improving smallholder coffee farming systems in Southeast Asia
Commissioned by: The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development - BMZ via DeveloPPP.de
Country: Thailand
Partner: Nestlé (Thai) Ltd.
Overall term: 2018 to 2020

Context

Although demand for coffee is constantly increasing, there has been a dramatic decline in coffee production in producing countries in the Southeast Asian region over the past years. The reasons behind low productivity include declining coffee plantation areas - which is contrary to growing demand and consumption for it, degraded soil, aging coffee trees, inefficient land-use, lack of business knowledge, skills among coffee farmers and little adoption of best farming practices and management.

Objective

10,500 Small holder coffee farmers in the three countries; Indonesia (7,000), Philippines (1,500) and Thailand (2,000), have improved the economic viability of their farming systems.

Approach

In a Strategic Alliance, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Nestlé work together with 10,500 local coffee farmers in three countries, of which 2,000 farmers are in Thailand. The partners aim to make coffee farming economically more attractive and to increase the incomes that coffee farmers can earn, thus improving their livelihoods. The Coffee+ project provides capacity development to smallholder coffee farmers by equipping them with an entrepreneurial attitude, knowledge and skills through GIZ’s learning tool called “Farmer Business School (FBS)” which is packed with interventions on best farming practices and a diversified income through an inter/multi-cropping system. The project strengthens the existing structure of farmer and group organisation and supports founding local ownership and learning alliances. To secure long-term sustainability of the measures, knowledge and learning tools developed in partnerships will be publicised and made available in line with the coffee strategy of Thailand. Moreover, a sustainable farming and supply chain for sourcing Robusta Coffee is being established.