The Coffee Gardens was established in 2017 with the goal of producing incredible specialty coffee in an ethical way, offering a transparent and direct link between coffee farmers and coffee consumers. The following information on our micro-lots has been produced to enable our customer and consumers to better understand the coffee they are buying, the story behind it, and the incredible farmers who grow it.
The Coffee Gardens Project has been established with many purposes such as improve farmer's income and livelihoods, create and provide rural employment, promote gender equality, increase transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain and enviromental protection in the area.
The Coffee Gardens purchased coffee cherries at an average price of 1,400 UGX (38 ￠ US) per KG of red cherry.
Our price was a minimum of 10% above the market price - and for the majority of the farmers who live in hard to reach areas - around 30% above the rate offered by traders.
The Coffee Gardens also incentivise and reward farmers through a number of different monetary and non-monetary ways.
This includes post-season bonuses, additional income-generating and employment opportunities, tree distribution and a range of all-year-round training programs.
The Coffee Gardens is transparent with theirs partner farmers about buying policy and prices, providing each registered farmer with a contract and a buying-record book, communicating any price changes via SMS to registered farmers, and providing receipts for every transaction.
The coffee in this micro-lot is grown by the farmers living on the top of the
mountain stretching all the way to the buffer zone for the Mount Elgon National Park. The unseasonable rains at the end of January allowed the last coffees of these contributing farmers to ripen nicely and created an extended harvest season. As these farmers live further from The Coffee Gardens’ washing station, farmers whose harvest had already finished helped by carrying the coffee down to our processing station, earning extra income. Most of these contributing
farmers registered during the harvest season, and will receive training by The Coffee Gardens’ agronomists.
76 farmers, including 6 women. Each farmer provided an average of 230 KGs of
red cherry.