Voices of our Producers: Interviews with Women Producers in Rwanda

Interviewing Olive NYIRAGAHIGIRWA (center),
Bridget VUGUZIGA, translator, (right)

In 2024 we conducted our 4th round of ‘sample group” interviews with the producers of our Rwandan women grown coffee. We started this practice in 2019 in hopes of integrating our data with that of other groups doing larger producer surveys. The collaboration with others hasn’t happened, it was disappointingly difficult to engage other, larger groups in a joint effort. However, we’ve found the work valuable in many ways, despite the fact that that our “sample” is too small to in any way represent the average for the groups we work with.

What We Learn

In these interviews I gain context that is impossible to gain other ways. I use the context to strengthen our supplier - buyer relationship and achieve the mission of Artisan Coffee Imports, which is to improve the lives of farmers (and strengthen the brand promises of roasters). I know, for example, why making our payments on time is so important. We learn about the farmers' struggles, their dreams and their every-day life.

Melanie MUKAMUNANA 

For example, Melanie, one of the Ejo Heza members I’ve known the longest has been raising one of her grandsons since the genocide in 1994. [Ejo Heza women are part of the Kopakama Cooperative.] He was planning to get married in a few months and Melanie was planning to use her Ejo Heza premium, and the token of cash I give to each interviewee, to support his wedding gift.

Olive, another Ejo Heza member, also raised her grandson. She tells us the story of how at first he hated working on the farm. But gradually, he saw how the coffee harvest brought their household good things like better food and a tile roof. Then he realized coffee paid for his school fees. He started asking how he could make the coffee plant produce more cherries and became interested in agronomy. This gave him motivation in school that he hadn’t had. Now he’s proud to be farming with Olive. In turn, Olive is proud of the good house with a good floor and roof she provides. “Now it’s a house a widow can truly be proud of,” she says.

Olive also endured a tragedy since the last time I interviewed her. She was in a “moto accident”, which means when she was taking a motorcycle taxi, it got in an accident. She was wearing a helmet as is the Rwandan law, but she was severely injured and hospitalized. Now she has a significant scar on the side of her face.

We also interviewed women of the Agaseke group. [The Agaseke women are part of the KOPAKAKI cooperative.] One of them, MUSABWAMANA Marie Chantel, struck me as quite accomplished, and it turns out she is a relatively new member. Chantel’s family consists of her husband and two children, ages 3 and 5. Together they have 6500 coffee trees, which means she is a large coffee farmer in Rwanda (land size is about 3 hectares). She was a field officer for the Kopakaki cooperative before she got married. She explained that “Group A” is the designation for the farmers with the best marks from the cooperative agronomist for maintaining their coffee. She’s proud to be a Group A farmer, because you must be in group A to be in the Agaseke women’s group.

Marie Chantel MUSABWAMANA