Kagera Co-operative Union (KCU) is an association of 124 smaller co-operatives who together represent over 60,000 coffee farmers in the Kagera region of northwestern Tanzania. Growing their coffee between 800 and 1500 meters in altitude around the western shores of Lake Victoria, KCU’s farmers grow a mix of robusta and arabica coffees. The average plot size is very small; each family cultivates on average only 1.6 acres of land for food and other crops, and coffee typically is grown on about one third of this land.

Established with the aim of seeking and maintaining markets to raise coffee farmers’ incomes, the association exports coffee to a number of fair trade buyers around the world. Using a fund established to distribute the benefits of these higher fair trade prices, KCU has been better placed to make advance payments for farmers (saving them high interest charges on bank loans) and has paid off historical debt of it’s own. Schools have also been built, with more planned for the future. Current plans also include improvements to local roads and the construction of medical facilities.

A proportion of coffee production is sold on as powdered instant coffee – typically, much of the world’s instant coffee is made using robusta coffee. KCU have also been able to use premiums they have received from fair trade sales to purchase a majority stake in an instant coffee processing and packaging plant in nearby Bukoba, which allows them to retain a higher percentage of the value of their instant coffee than they would be able to achieve if they had to pay processing costs to another company.

Fair trade relationships brings other benefits as well. Farmers are now more knowledgeable about unfair trading practices – commercial traders routinely try to trick them into believing they have less coffee to sell by using improperly-set scales, and this problem has now been largely overcome. With higher prices farmers have also been able to invest back into their coffee plots, replacing aging trees with new plantings and also converting increasing areas into certified organic production. Organic coffee commands a premium of approximately 50% over non-certified coffee.