Kilimanjaro

In 1999, in Mwika, a small village on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, 150 farmers harvested and processed their own coffee at home and then brought the parchment to the group headquarters. In 2001, with the help of Technoserve’s capital, they built the first Central processing unit. Started with 69 members, now the group remains with 45 of them who have a special status of a “coffee group” instead of a cooperative which is the expected norm in Tanzania. Other than climate change, the lack of youth participation questions the long term sustainbility of coffee production in this region. Despite this, the older farmers still continue to experiment in different ways including using cattle for both manure as well source of fuel for cooking among other things which keeps the group fairly active and competent.