Smallholder Cash and Export Crops Development Project

The overall aim of the project is to increase incomes for poor rural families in the Eastern, Southern and Western provinces by improving their cash crop yields and sales. Its main objective is to assist coffee and tea growers who produce and process arabica coffee and high-quality tea in specialized cooperatives. The project also contributes to privatizing state-owned tea plantations and redistributing land to some 4,000 poor households, of which about 2,000 are headed by women. The project also promotes the cultivation of non-traditional cash crops, including geranium, silk and passion fruit.

For coffee-marketing activities, the project works in collaboration with Misozi, a fair-trade company set up by participating coffee cooperatives to give producers better returns on their production. Misozi provides cooperatives with training, information, management support and access to specialized niches within the fair trade market. Tea cooperatives are assisted by the Federation of Tea Grower Cooperatives (FERWACOTHE).

Processing and marketing cooperatives are expected to be able to raise producer prices by 100 per cent for tea and 30 per cent for coffee once the industrial facilities have been amortized. Tangible increases are already being realized, especially by the coffee producers.

Source: IFAD