ARABIKA – Action to Relaunch Agriculture and Branding Internationalization of Kenyan Coffee, in and out of Africa
The project affects the coffee supply chain having an effect on the quality improvement component, on the organizational and management skills of the producer cooperatives and on the marketing component with the qualitative improvement of the final product: all these ways will make the access to different and more lucrative markets possible.
The project will be implemented in 7 Kenyan counties: Nyeri, Meru, Kiambu, Muranga, Embu, Machakos e Bungoma.
The program, which will start in July 2021 and will take three years time, will be based on two different activity components:
1) Training: these activities concern the formation of farmers under different aspects:
a. Acquisition of tasting skills and recognition of good green coffee quality in order to fully esteem the quality of their product.
b. Adoption of techniques suitable for a “climate smart” production, for disease control, for the right composting of coffee residue, for the adoption of modern and eco-friendly post-collection technologies.
c. Achievement of base managerial skills, with a special attention to the product transparency and traceability.
2) Branding: creating the premises for the Kenyan coffee brand strengthening through:
a. A careful digital registration of coffee farmers.
b. A mapping of the coffee areas in the counties selected.
c. The creation of traceable Kenyan coffee brands, offered on the specialized international market.
As part of this project, E4Impact will carry out these actions:
• Local farmers training (including training on the job) in order to allow the sharing of needed management capabilities for the development and organization of equal supply chains ready for quality export;
• Formulation of an action plan in order to define the original brands of Kenyan coffee;
• Collection and analysis of agro-ecological data about the cultivation areas of beneficiaries’ counties;
• Analysis and definition of “cup profiles” through the systemic collection of a suitable number of coffee samples from the beneficiaries’ counties;
• Data elaboration for the creation of specific geographical areas and definition of the related coffee brands;
• Opening of a promotion campaign for the communication of the new Kenyan coffee brands in the country and in Italy, also through the participation of Kenyan coffee representatives to three international fairs in Italy:
- Milano Coffee Festival
- Artigiano in Fiera
- Connext/Confindustria
