A Climate Emergency in East Africa: Supporting producers as they face the ongoing effects of climate change

We know the impact of the climate emergency is growing on a global scale, with remote and rural regions often suffering most.

With extreme weather conditions intensifying, farming communities urgently need to build resilience against rising temperatures and the increasing risk of pests and diseases.

An emergency in East Africa

In recent years, eastern Africa has starkly demonstrated the economic, political and humanitarian consequences of severe drought. Since 2020, the region has had six consecutive rainy seasons with insufficient precipitation, affecting millions.

This prolonged drought resulted from a multi-year La Niña event, likely intensified by global climate change, as even slight variations in sea surface temperatures can significantly alter weather patterns.

Shared Interest Lending Manager, Immaculate Ochieno, said: “In our region, we have experienced frequent floods, with increased severity and also longer drought spells.

The downside is the effect this has on coffee seasons. Previously, we would see harvest periods of three months; these are becoming shorter as weather patterns change, and coffee matures later. However, the issues comes as the buyer expects coffee at a certain time.

These issues extend beyond coffee. In Rwanda, we currently support six producer organisations with finance, including fruit-and-vegetable producer Garden Fresh.

Speaking about challenges Garden Fresh are facing, Immaculate told us:

"In the fresh vegetable harvest, farmers are being required to install greenhouses to prevent cross-pollination when using pesticides ... If greenhouses are not installed, pesticides can blow onto crops from nearby fields, affecting the quality and spreading the chemical.

"In this case, farmers are forced to sell the product locally at a lower price, and so they lose money ... This underlines how essential investments in greenhouses are to prevent cross-pollination and produce organically certified coffee.”

Brewing a Resilient Future for Ugandan Coffee with Banyankole Coffee Services

Uganda’s economy heavily relies on agricultural commodities like coffee, grown mainly by smallholder farmers. These farmers often have limited access to inputs such as fertiliser or seeds and information about adequate adaptive strategies to combat climate change.

These farmers are almost entirely dependent on rain-fed agriculture, and for around 70% of coffee households, farming is the main source of income. Over the past three decades, coffee-producing areas in Uganda have faced:

• Drier and warmer conditions
• Increasing annual temperatures which result in a loss of moisture from the leaves and soil
• More variable rainfall distribution

These changes have led to increased pests, diseases, soil erosion, irregular coffee flowering, unpredictable harvest seasons and ultimately reduced crop yields and quality.

Banyankole Coffee Services (BCS) was founded by three coffee farmers in 2014, with the aim of producing good quality coffee and achieving good prices to benefit farmers. Today, BCS works with more than 1,500 farmers, supporting them to export the highest quality Robusta coffee to local and international markets.

Speaking about the challenges BCS are currently experiencing, Managing Director Lauben Kurubaija said: 

“BCS are facing low deliveries due to a poor coffee harvest. But we have a new peak season with good coffees coming in October to January next year.”

"We are seeing coffee diseases, however, our agronomist has been advising on means of dealing with these, and we have seen a great improvement from their most recent report.

“We also struggle with a lack of capacity to implement the EUDR regulation on deforestation. Previously BCS had collected data for only 500 farmers and was short of funds. But we have fully implemented that from our local sales and been able to collect data for the majority of farmers now.”

Specifically, in relation to the impacts of climate change, Lauben said: 

"Coffee trees are drying and the quality of our products is reducing because of changing weather patterns, resulting in little or poor deliveries and a reduction in income to the community. However, these are now considered normal effects of climate change and cannot deter any one from producing good quality coffee with the trainings we have received from Shared Interest support.”

Banyankole Coffee Services and Shared Interest

BCS have been a Shared Interest customer since 2020, receiving loans to meet export demands from their buyers.

Managing Director, Lauben, said: 

“Shared Interest finance has pushed Banyankole Coffee Services to a new level.”

In response to the socioeconomic impacts of climate change upon farmers, our support is catalysing Banyankole's efforts to invest in climate adaptation solutions and focus areas.

Lauben continued: 

“We have received excellent services provided by Shared Interest Foundation and Shared Interest Society, which have enabled us to sustain and grow our operations. Training has been provided on agroforestry, agribusiness, beekeeping skills, and honey harvesting skills to more than 300 farmers.

“The project has also provided 12,000 good variety coffee seedlings and 4,300 shade trees to 300 farmers, as well as over 1,000 beehives to 210 BCS farmers.”

In total, Shared Interest Foundation has conducted two projects with BCS in 2024: an agroforestry project which ended in April 2024 and a Bees for Business project which is currently ongoing.

Speaking about the role of Shared Interest Foundation in relation to the organisation's response to the impacts of climate change, Lauben said:

We continue to appreciate the huge support you have delivered to BCS and sometimes we ask ourselves where we would be without the shared Interest Foundation for its overwhelming support. Climate challenges without mitigation and prevention; Members without alternative incomes.

Shared Interest Foundation, we shall live to remember you for your overwhelming support.

Garden Fresh: Seucring a Future through Fruit and Vegetables

On the outskirts of the Rwandan capital of Kigali, father-and-son owned fruit-and-vegetable co-op Garden Fresh are rooted in the heart of a growing horticultural industry, which is valued at 10% of the nation’s agricultural GDP. Founded in 2015, Garden Fresh has evolved to support over 300 farmers, producing 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 out grower model by engaging with other co-operatives and smallholder farmers to source their produce.

Garden Fresh provide farmers with inputs, such as seeds and crop protection, as well as training on climate adaptation solutions, to enable them to meet quality and volume standards required for export.

Our Lending Team in East Africa told us that an increase of pests and diseases caused by the impacts of climate change is a present challenge for the co-operative.

Shared Interest Lending Officer, Kennedy Mwasi, said: 

“In fresh fruit production, climate change is causing increased pests, resulting in farmers using pesticides to control them. Approved pesticides to ensure the quality of the crops, are costly and buyers are insisting farmers make use of greenhouses to stop cross-contamination with nearby farms using unapproved pesticides.” 

Garden Fresh Managing Director Emmanuel Harelimana, said:

 “A prolonged rainy season has affected our planning and rotation programme as we were not able to grow beans and maize for the local market as rotation from our programme and farmers missed that opportunity. Also, we were affected by diseases coming with too long rains. For example, last year we had rains from October to May which was huge and abnormal.” 

Shared Interest and Garden Fresh

Shared Interest has supported Garden Fresh with access to finance since 2023, enabling the co-op to provide stable incomes and direct purchases, fulfil increasing orders and bulk-purchase materials from Kenya

Speaking about the impact of our finance, Emmanuel Harelimana, Garden Fresh Managing Director, said:

“Farmers are paid on time, and encouraged to farm as businesses, and now we have more demand to plan more. They get extra income and are able to improve their livelihood, get medical insurance and send kids to school.

“There is a steady market for their crops and we offer an improved price compared to what they could get from local market (an increase of up to 80%).”

Looking to the future, Garden Fresh will continue to train their farmers on climate change impacts and Good Agricultural Practices, in an effort to continue improving upon the quality of their produce. In addition, the co-operative will train farmers in passionfruit farming, enabling them to meet increasing demand. Garden Fresh will also continue sourcing for new international buyers in 2024, with current negotiations underway with a retailer in the United Kingdom for fresh produce.

Did you know?

In 2022, Garden Fresh opened the first privately owned packhouse in Rwanda, based in the northern region of Masoro. Packhouses serve as a critical link between farmers and export markets, helping to aggregate and prepare produce. The packhouse will:

• Reduce post-harvest losses
• Increase processing capacity
• Generate 300 seasonal jobs for women and young people

Protect producers against climate change

In 2023, 153 producer organisations accessed fair finance through Shared Interest, supporting the livelihoods of 9,519 employees and 412,628 farmers and artisans, including 131,415 women.

The far-reaching impacts of our work could not be made possible without the support of our community of over 10,000 ethical investor members based in the UK.

Strengthen livelihoods, create thriving communities and support farmers in their escalating fight against the devastating impacts of climate change today, by adding to a Shared Interest Share Account and making your money make a difference.