"The DE Foundation has contributed to the lives of thousands of producers and delivered many valuable insights on growing sustainable coffee of good quality." Stefanie Miltenburg, Director of the DE Foundation

Highlights

Free HIV testing and counseling - awareness raising on farmers' healthcare

Posted by on 13 April 2012

One of the pressing issues in the North West region of Cameroon, where agriculture plays a principal role in income generating, is health. According to the National Demographic Survey of 2004, the HIV prevalence in Cameroon was 5.5% of the total 2 million inhabitants, with the North West region having the highest prevalence of 8.7% of the total 19.4 million inhabitants.

Read the full post

Lam Vien Coffee Cooperative in its first crop

Posted by on 10 April 2012

A large number of the coffee farmers in Vietnam are dependent on the local collectors for processing coffee and for credit. They borrow money from the collectors with high interest rates (at 2.-3.5% per month) not only for inputs but often also for family expenses. While generally such interest rates strongly reduce farm income, in the worst cases they lead to farmers having to sell their coffee at low prices when their coffee cherries are still unripe. Because of such practices, various farmers have fallen in a debt trap, where they need to borrow to survive and work hard just to be able to pay of their debts.

Read the full post

From price-takers to market-makers

Posted by on 13 February 2012

Ugandan project farmers become part of a farmer-owned company, the Uganda Coffee Farmers Alliance (UCFA)

Read the full post

Coffee World Radio Cameroon: 2nd show

Posted by on 7 February 2012

Today the radio show "Coffee World" talks about Good Agricultural Practices and Farmer Field Schools with project agronomist Ishmael Chefon Ndofor and Project officers Emmanuel, Wara Festus and Mey Chrisantus. Duration: approximately 30 minutes.

Read the full post

Pre-financing fertilizers in Honduras

Posted by on 3 November 2011

Starting in 2008, the project "Professionalizing the coffee supply chain in Honduras", jointly supported by SOGIMEX S.A. (ECOM) and DE Foundation has pre-financed fertilizers to 453 small coffee producers. An average increase of 30% in productivity was observed right after the first year. With time, productivity can be doubled or tripled by applying good agricultural practices and the right fertilizers.

Read the full post

Solar dryer - a way forward for better quality and income of producers

Posted by on 3 October 2011

In the Sustainable Coffee Project in Colombia, supporting project farmers to build solar dryers is an important activity that has brought a highly visible impact.

Read the full post

"It's not easy to get their coffee!"

Posted by on 29 August 2011

After 8.5 years of involvement and 3 project phases (initialisation, expansion and business development), our project in Peru will come to an end in September 2011. From a humble start in 2003 with a handful of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), the project has helped to build a fully-fledged cooperative that operates independently in the upper segments of the international coffee market. In this article we will look at the journey of the producers and the project team.

Read the full post

Coffee World Radio from Cameroon

Posted by on 12 May 2011

As part of its coffee promotion work, the Cameroon project regularly broadcasts a show called "Coffee World" on several local radio stations. The show usually involves a short update on the coffee market, explanations on technical activities such as pruning and processing, interviews with national and international coffee experts and so on.

Read the full post

Colombian video

Posted by on 2 May 2011

During the last project steering group meeting, a film crew accompanied the project team of the FNC and the donor representatives (Dutch government and DE Foundation) and came up with a nice 15 minute impression of the project, the farmers involved and the roles of the various partners.

Read the full post

Mushrooming business in Cameroon

Posted by on 28 April 2011

Inspired by both Ken Calvert of Renertech and the ZERI Foundation (winner of the 2009 SCAA Sustainability Awards), the DE Foundation project in Cameroon decided to add an activity on the promotion of mushroom cultivation on coffee pulp. Mushrooms can be a valuable dietary addition in a region such as the North West of Cameroon where food is rich in carbohydrates but often poor in protein. Besides dietary advantages, mushrooms can also contribute to diversification of income. Before kicking off, a small research grant was made available to look into the size, location and structure of the Cameroonian mushroom market as well as peoples' perception of mushrooms as foodstuff. Afterall, growing mushrooms only to find out after the first harvest is available that people do not like to eat them is a waste of time and money. It turned out we did not have to worry, uptake of this initiative grew as quickly as the mushrooms themself, so to speak. Curious...

Read the full post

1 2