Meet the farmers from the Bwindi Coffee Growers Cooperative

Gorilla Conservation Coffee is helping the farmers in the cooperative through training, funding and paying a premium to farmers to produce better coffee. With this initiative, we believe that the farmers’ yield will double – or even triple – provided they apply the training information on their farms.

Meet Karibwende Samuel

Age: 58

Family size: 7

Education status: Literate

Farmer group: Kayonza

Karibwende is the Chairperson of the Bwindi Coffee Growers Cooperative. His farm sits on 11 acres of land and has approximately 5,100 Arabica trees of below 20 years.

Thanks to the training offered by Gorilla Conservation Coffee, Sam can now apply good farm practices such as pruning, stumping and appropriate use of shade trees to develop his coffee farm.

Meet Mugaye Sulait

Age: 61

Family size: 11

Education status: Literate

Farmer group: Butogota

Mugaye is a member of the Bwindi Coffee Growers Cooperative. His farm sits on 9 acres of land has approximately 4,000 Arabica trees of below 20 years.

Mugaye’s farm was used as a case study during the training offered by Gorilla Conservation Coffee in July 2016. During that training, it was realised that he needed more help with pests and disease control as his coffee trees were suffering from many attacks. He is very interested in growing his farm’s capacity and is willing to apply the new farming methods Gorilla Conservation Coffee is introducing.

Meet Safari Joseph

Age: 44

Family size: 4

Education status: Literate

Farmer group: Kayonza

Safari is a member of the Bwindi Coffee Growers Cooperative and works for Gorilla Conservation Coffee as the Coffee Production Officer. His farm sits on 4 acres of land with about 2,200 Arabica trees of below 20 years.

Thanks to the training offered by Gorilla Conservation Coffee, Safari can now apply good farm practices such as pruning, stumping and appropriate use of shade trees to develop his coffee farm. He plans to buy more land, provided his land yields more coffee in the next season.

Meet Butamanya Vincent

Age:  63

Family size: 9

Education status: Literate

Farmer group: Mpungu

Vincent is the Vice Chairperson of the Bwindi Coffee Growers Cooperative. His farm sits on 30 acres of land with about 16,000 Arabica trees of below 20 years.

Gorilla Conservation Coffee is working closely with Vincent so that he can produce at least 16 metric tons of coffee in the coming seasons. Training and funding Vincent with the necessary materials will help produce good coffee as well as increase the yield. Vincent has the biggest farm in the cooperative and we believe his farm is therefore a good role model for the other coffee farmers.