Assisting growers across the country in adopting better farming practices to improve export quality

Kawacom, through its sustainable projects department, assists growers in adopting better farming practices and obtaining certifications. The year-round efforts in seven projects across Uganda ensure that farmers can add value to their crops and that ECOM, as an exporter, will add value to the final consumer’s cup and to the Ugandan coffee exports.

The company works in close relationship with almost 30,000 coffee farmers  since its first Organic certification in 1999, when it was at the forefront of major sustainable innovations: Organic NOP & EU, UTZ, Rainforest certifications being the major achievements alongside quality improvements.

In Eastern Uganda, the Kawacom’s Bugisu "Sipi Falls" Project launched in 2000 and today reaches 6,900 famers certified to the organic (EU, NOP), UTZ and Rainforest Alliance Certified standards. Through a co-operation with the EVD (the Dutch agency for sustainability, innovation and international business co-operation) a fully equipped wet processing mill has been installed, providing 6 mt/hr pulping, 40 mt batch dryings, a drying patio, 300 mt capacity warehouse, cherry collection trucks and a waste water treatment system.

With this state-of-the-art wet mill, Kawacom’s aim is to enhance smallholder fine arabica coffee quality through centralized wet processing of the coffee cherries. The combination of training and the new wet mill enable Kawacom to combine quality improvement and triple certification (Organic, UTZ, RFA), which benefits the farmers and opens up broad marketing possibilities to enable them to trade into higher value markets.