Bees for Business: Kabwohe

sUMMARY

This 12-month project, launched in February 2024, supported 210 coffee farmers in western Uganda to diversify into beekeeping to provide them a second source of income alongside coffee farming.

Location: Kabwohe, Uganda

Date: February 2024 to April 2025

Participants: 210 coffee farmers (46% women)

Partners: Banyankole Coffee Services (BCS)

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Project Background

In western Uganda, over 90% of smallholder farmers depend on coffee as their main source of income. However, the impacts of climate change increasingly threaten coffee production in the region.

Meanwhile, many farmers harvest their coffee before it is ripe for income to meet their immediate needs. However, this decreases coffee quality and value, reducing the income of the farmer and volume of saleable coffee received by the co-operative.

Our Bees for Business projects aim to work with local co-operatives to help farmers diversify into beekeeping, building their knowledge, skills, confidence and financial resilience with an additional source of income. We are currently delivering two Bees for Business projects in Uganda.

Project Details

To deliver this project we worked in partnership with Ugandan coffee co-operative, Banyankole Coffee Services (BCS).

This project has equipped coffee farmers with beekeeping skills and provided them with the tools and equipment to set up a beekeeping enterprise to increase their income and improve their livelihood.

As part of this project, agroforestry trees were distributed to the project participants for planting in their coffee farms, where the beehives will be placed. Placing the hives in the coffee farms will increase coffee yield through cross pollination from the bees.

Participant story: Meet Dan

Project Participant, Dan Kashurura, is a member of Banyankole Coffee Services and has been a coffee farmer for 15 years.

Dan had always wanted to go into beekeeping but never had the resources to start. Through this project he has now received five modern beehives and he is currently preparing for his first harvest of honey.

Dan said:

“At first I was fearing bees, but after training I was convinced I could be friends with them. After training I got more knowledge and courage”

Image: Project participant, Dan Kashurura, standing next to his new beehives along his coffee trees.

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Project impacts

Before this project, 98% (206) of surveyed farmers had never practised beekeeping, and none had received formal training in the field. By the end of the project, 77% reported having high or very high knowledge of beehive maintenance, while 58% reported the same level of knowledge in honey harvesting techniques.

Overall, 95% (169) of farmers indicated they had gained sufficient skills to continue practising beekeeping independently.

Although too soon to observe changes in coffee production as a result of these project activities, 81% (141) of farmers were confident or very confident that their production would increase and that coffee would provide them with a sustainable income.

Honey production and sales as of June 2025

Honey produced: 2,018kg
Total value of payments to BCS farmers: £8,012 (£3.96/kg)
Total value of sales paid to BCS: £8,704
Total profit reinvested by BCS to finance ongoing operational costs: £692

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We hope you enjoyed learning about this Shared Interest Foundation project.

Since 2004, thanks to our incredible supporters, Shared Interest Foundation has delivered 51 projects in 15 countries, reaching over 13,000 farmers and artisans.

Support the Foundation's work today and help to build a fairer world for the future.

If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to speak with a member of the Foundation team via email here.

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