Meeting the producers we support in Rwanda

As January neared to a close, I was honoured to spend a memorable and meaningful fortnight on the African continent. During my first week of travelling, I visited some of the producers Shared Interest supports in Cote d’Ivoire.

From there, I flew 10 hours east to Rwanda. – together with Paul Sablich, Head of Lending, and our East Africa team, including Lending Manager, Immaculate Ochieno, Lending Officer, Kennedy Mwasi and Customer Representative, Josephine Mwasaru. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, our East Africa team work closely with the businesses we support in the region to understand and respond to their needs.

Garden Fresh 

Following a day of rest, we commenced our week in ‘the land of a thousand hills’ with a visit to Garden Fresh, a horticultural co-operative supporting over 300 farmers in the production of high-quality products, such as French beans, chillies and passionfruit. 

Whilst exporters in Rwanda largely rely on production from their own farms, Garden Fresh are pioneering the outgrower model by actively engaging with other co-operatives and smallholder farmers throughout the country to source produce.

What’s more, Garden Fresh provides farmers vital inputs and training to enable them to adapt to the impacts of climate change and meet robust export standards.

During our visit, we toured the head office in Kigali, before driving several hours eastward to the Kayonza district, to visit the farms of the co-operative’s producer members.

Tropic Coffee

On Tuesday, we visited Tropic Coffee, a family-owned co-operative also stationed in Kigali. After the devastating Rwandan genocide in 1994, many women were left widowed, with children. Tropic Coffee work with almost 3,000 farmers growing coffee on small, individual parcels of land. More than half of these farmers are women.

Since 2018, Shared Interest has supported Tropic Coffee with ethical finance. These timely funds have helped to secure contracts, grow the business and construct a coffee washing station, reducing dependency on hired facilities, whilst generating opportunities for employment and value addition.

In 2022, Shared Interest Foundation began working with the company, launching a project to support 625 coffee farmers to enhance their production and build resilience to climate change.

During the visit, we took a short journey southwest to the Ruhango district. Here, we met with Tropic Coffee farmers and visited the coffee washing station, an important facility made possible through the power of our members’ investments. Here, the team observed the unique wet processing methods attributed to the distinct qualities of Arabica coffee.

Huye Mountain Coffee  

On Wednesday, we visited Huye Mountain Coffee (Huye), a co-operative working with over 2,800 farmers to bring high quality coffee from the south of Rwanda to the shores of Singapore, Thailand, Japan, the USA and the United Kingdom.

During Fairtrade Fortnight 2022, we brought Huye farmers and Shared Interest supporters together as part of a series of online events, to explore the lives and challenges of producers in the different regions we operate.

Shared Interest has supported Huye since 2019 with finance which has enabled the co-operative to pay farmers for their coffee in advance of export, as well as to invest in a milling machine, a colour sorter machine and a new warehouse in Kigali.

Immaculate told us:

“The highlight of the trip, for me, was the coffee tour conducted for us by Huye Mountain Coffee, which was very interesting.

“The tour started from the office, to the plantation, to the top of the mountain, where we roasted, ground and drank coffee. From there, we went down to the coffee washing stations up to the factory, the drying tables and to the lab. The guide took us through the origin of coffee and how it ended up in Rwanda and the coffee processing at Huye.”

Simbi Coffee

Following the visit to Huye, the team drove 20 minutes north, through the region of Butare, to visit Simbi Coffee, a co-operative powering the livelihoods of over 4,500 smallholder farmers. Like many Rwandan enterprises, Simbi’s story is characterised by resilience, exceptionalism and hope.

Since we first provided finance to Simbi in 2021, the co-operative has invested in a dry mill and warehouse, meaning Simbi can now mill its own coffee to improve product standards, whilst earning additional income milling for other organisations. Shared Interest remains the co-operative’s sole social lender, underscoring the impact of our support.

With increased revenue from the dry mill, Abdul Rudahunga, Founder of Simbi, says opportunities have been created for members of the local community – many of whom are young women – who can earn an income sorting coffee during the summer season.

Abdul told us:

“Operating a dry mill has significantly changed our work, both in terms of efficiency and allowing Simbi to control the entire production chain with complete security and transparency.”

Team Building and Trip Reflections

Following a bustling mid-week, we welcomed a more relaxed Thursday, spent meeting with the Lending team to discuss the growth of our portfolio of customers in East Africa, as well as changes to the ACELI Incentives program and planned activities in the coming months. We then visited the office of Iurus Company Advocates in Kigali to speak to associates Fred Mugisha and Jordan Kamili about the progress of collateral registration for our accounts in Rwanda.

To round off a fantastic trip, we visited the Akagera National Park in Akagera for team-building exercises. The National Park entails over 1,000km of protected savannah and wetland bordering Tanzania.

Reflecting on an eventful week in Rwanda, Immaculate shared several observations: 

“Foremost, businesses in the agricultural sector need adequate liquidity to meet growing demand as prices of coffee keeps rising.

“Secondly, there is a need for infrastructure development to keep improving the quality and efficiency of operations, hence the need for Capital Expenditure (funds used for long term business investments), even as we provide working capital to our customers.

“Last, but not least, our customers really do appreciate it when we visit their premises, especially from the senior leaders of the organisation. It demonstrates our shared values and objectives.”