Dehab's Ultra Sustainable Farm in Kaffa, Ethiopia

I was impressed with the emphasis on sustaining community and mother

Dehab on her farm.

earth that Dehab has invested in her large coffee farm in the Kaffa zone of Ethiopia. In this blog, I'll share few things, as I suspect most readers share a love of our mother earth and things that are healthy and life-giving. 

The coffee trees on Dehab's farm are growing under giant, old-growth rainforest trees in way that can only be described as magical to foreigners like us arriving from urban, agro-chemical territories. Her land is in the buffer zone of the UNESCO protected Kaffa Biosphere. Walking through the farm you feel like you're in the movie Avatar, only all the low-growth is coffee! 

Coffee growing under old growth trees.

Dehab has developed a modern honey/ bee-keeping farm which has multiple objectives: bees help the organic growth of the coffee trees. Honey is a good second income-earner for Dehab's business. She uses the honey-farm to teach bee-keeping to men and women, because she knows that the women will be allowed to do the bee-keeping business by themselves, because it is something they can do close to the home. Earning money from honey will mean that the woman has to spend less time cutting down trees to make charcoal to sell for money, which will help save the forest. Regenerative agriculture at its best, I think!

While we were walking through the farm, one of Dehab's friends, Dr. Mitzi, who

is a remarkable, well-educated, well-traveled woman with long experience with the United Nations. Dr. Mitzi is also an herbologist, and she was showing us the herbs that are growing among the groundcover plants and telling us the medicinal properties. 

Then, when the entire group (about 30-35 people) was together in the center of the farm (approximately), Dr. Mitzi had us all be still for 2 minutes of silence to listen to the earth and the sounds of the forest. For those who wanted to join, she demonstrated some yoga poses. We were silent and hear the sounds of the forest.

Pause to hear the forest.

After that, we hiked to the top of a nearby hill and Dehab pointed out an area of about 30 ha. that she does not farm so that the animals and plants are all natural there. It's like a forest reserve within the reserve. You could hear the moisture dripping, see the moss hanging from ancient branches and we happened to be there on a beautiful sunny day. Magical!

To top it off, at the end of the hiking, we enjoyed the entire Ethiopian coffee ceremony, (starting with roasting the green beans), live and close-up, while we ate lunch at the offices of the farm.

In the midst of a rainforest.

Molesh Demisse lead the coffee ceremony.

Paying Women's Premiums - A Little Goes A Long Way

We'd like to share how Artisan’s women's premium program works in Rwanda. 

Basics of how the program operates

·        Cooperative agrees to pay $0.136/lb of the green coffee price to the women’s group. The president of the women’s group signs the green contract. We believe we may be the only importer where every contract at origin is signed by a woman representing the women’s group, (along with the signature of the president of the cooperative, who is typically male, but not always).

·        Artisan wires the women’s premium to the cooperative’s USD account separate from other coffee payments. The cooperative’s leader is required contractually to send Artisan a receipt showing the deposit to the local currency account of the women’s group.  

·        The leaders of the women’s group agree on the amount, timing and process for distribution of the cash to its members. This is approved at an assembly of all group members. If the amount is small (< $1,000) they may decide to use the funds for a community project instead of direct cash distribution to each member. Documentation of the distribution of funds is sent to Artisan and always available to roasters.

 2017 General Assembly Celebration: Click here to view the YouTube video

2018 General Assembly Celebration: Click here to view the YouTube video

Click here to read our 2018 blogpost about the day the premium is distributed.

 

Symbolic check given to Ejo Heza - $7,920 premium for the 2018 season.

Sustainability in Practice Panels at SCAA2015

Parting sustainability shots:

Kim Ionescu, Counter Culture: "You're never too small."

Tracy Ging, S&D Coffee: "There's more than one way up the mountain."

Kelly Goodejohn, Starbucks: "Understand motivations - head or heart."

Shauna Mohr, Volcafe: "Nourish your optimism."

Sarah Beaubien, Farmer Brothers: "You can only manage what you measure."

Mark Stell: "Going to the extreme - measuring how employees get to work and business travel. Measuring waste and becoming waste neutral in the next 5 years is the goal."

Artisan Coffee Group Now Offering Consulting

Artisan Coffee Group is pleased to offer our clients professional consulting for roasters. We can provide impact assessment at origin, monitoring and evaluation of programs and consulting to improve the efficiency of your supply chain through our unique “Lean at Origin” strategic process. These services are aimed at roasters who want to increase the productivity and sustainability of their business. Our consulting service uses a data-driven approach supplemented by Ruth Ann's 20 years of business experience and a passion for quality coffee.

What is "Lean at Origin"? It's a belief that producers are small business-people who make the best decisions they can about how to invest their scarce resources. With training, we help them "see" waste in their processes that is otherwise invisible. Through teamwork we improve leadership capabilities of every family member, friend and hired worker. These fundamentals of quality production have been proven over decades by thousands of small, mom & pop machine shops in the automotive industry. Ruth Ann grew up near the Motor City and for 8 years has helped manufacturers to compete better on the global playing field. With research and experience through Michigan State University, these concepts are now taking hold in coffee supply chains around the world.

Contact us for more information, or visit our website.