Lot H444: Misozi / Abakundakawa Rushashi

Producer Story:

Abakundakawa means ‘coffee lovers” in Kinyarwanda and was born in 1999 as association of 100 coffee growers. During this period, farmers were struggling to get a market as they were working at individual basis. To solve that issue, they decided to join efforts and established a group of farmers with aim of accessing the market collectively. In 2021 the cooperative sources the coffee from 2,272 cooperative members and 3,800 non-members in the vicinity which makes it a total of 6,072 farmers that are benefiting from the cooperatives.
Abakundakawa serves as a prime example of how Rwandan cooperatives can become sustainable by constantly improving quality and operating sustainably. The cooperative is member of MISOZI, a local private but social exporting business.
MANIRARORA Xavier is a coffee farmer for 18 years and he joined Abakundakawa cooperative in 2010 when it started to introduce youth in coffee sector. Before joining, he thought that the coffee would take a long time to give him a production. The cooperative provided him with training to improve the quality and yield of coffee. Then, Xavier started participating in different quality competitions and his efforts are finally paid off by becoming one of the winners of Best of Rwanda. He produced honey processed coffee which Rushashi coffee washing station recently introduced to producers.