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How did poor Tanzanian coffee farmers gain 'financial traction' through an affordable Rotary opportunity?

Bukoba Global Grant Kolcafe Kopling Society of Tanzania Lake Victoria Sustainability coffee farmers manure subsistence
It is hard to imagine that something as simple as cow poop can change society, but that’s the key message Rotarian Jamie Kyles shared with the Rotary Club of Kingston.
 
Kyles, a retired Victoria BC “oilman”, has been working with an African NGO, the KOPLING Society of Tanzania, a lay apostolate within the Catholic Church.  KST is the marketing arm for poor coffee farmers in the country. Jamie Kyles Rotary supported project is called KOLCAFE 2 and is centred in Northwest Tanzania in the village of Kigazi, near Bukoba on the shores of Lake Victoria. For the past three years, he has been putting together a Rotary Global Grant to expand the project.
 
When Kyles began, the 150 coffee farmers who came to hear him were divided and didn’t believe him even with the support of a local agriculture expert. “They were simply ‘in survival mode trying to scrape by on 60 cents a day for a family of five,” Kyles said.
 
Because local subsistence farmers didn’t cooperate, Kyles knew something they didn’t. There were among them a couple of growers whose coffee plants yields were 3 or 4 times greater than the average yield of 2 kg per plant.
 
Using that knowledge and Rotary donations Jamie developed a four-pronged approach:
  • Buy and truck in lots of manure
  • Supply hand tools to process the manure
  • Get pruning tools for the coffee bushes
  • Build raised drying beds for the coffee

The KOLCAFE Project

A typical Coffee Plant before Kolcafe
A typical Coffee Plant after Kolcafe
A composting mound of manure and leaves
A drying screen
 
Without the project, the value of the coffee produced in 2019 would have been USD $154,000. With the project, the actual value was USD $347,000, or about a 500% increase.
 
 
“By the end of the second year,” Kyles said, “The farmers had gained “financial traction” and were working together and picking up 99% of the cost of continuing the project.” This he said, “Is my definition of sustainability.”
 
Besides the money and greater yields, Kyles listed other benefits to the community:
  • A decrease of 50% in domestic violence for women,
  • New roofs on many houses,
  • Several orphans adopted,
  • Improved nutrition and
  • More children attending school.

Listen and View Jamie Kyles Presentation