Good news is that four micro-washing stations, located in another region where ADF/MTM rebels had been terrorising the population for some time, have become operational again, now that those Muslim rebels have moved west when they heard that the Ugandan army was coming into Congo to fight them. Kawa Kabuya and Rikolto, with the support of IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), were able to quickly provide them with new coffee pulping machines so that their members can once again participate fully in the cooperative's success and enjoy the highest price (20% higher than what non-members are paid by local coffee buyers). Before that, the cooperative had also done a much-appreciated collection of clothes and kitchen utensils for all members whose houses had been set on fire by the rebels.
A negative trend however is that renewing certifications has become very difficult. Fairtrade has already withdrawn from eastern Congo in 2022 because they do not want to put their inspectors at risk. Temporary certification with remote verification was tested but abandoned, with no alternative. Two years later, Ecocert and Africert also discontinued organic certification in the region for the same reason. For a coffee cooperative, however, dual certification Fairtrade/bio is vital.
Fairtrade now says they are nevertheless trying to develop again a new appropriate standard for conflict areas by 2026 at the latest, with more consideration for local support. Until then, new certifications remain impossible. Negotiations with CERES in Kenya have recently begun. This company has shown interest to take over biocertification in Congo. Hopefully they will keep their word. Because bio-certification is now linked to new European Union regulations (EUDR), requiring hard evidence that coffee (and other imports) come from regions where no deforestation has taken place after 2020. Therefore, all coffee fields must be geolocated with GPS.
Kawa Kabuya has already made good progress: 1,800 fields are already on the map, the remaining 700 are still inaccessible because of occupation by the M23 rebels. Without their cooperative, all small farmers would lose their access to the European market. Now they are well informed and getting ready to meet all conditions in time to continue exporting coffee to the European Union after 2025.
Partners you can count on
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Access to credit, a super-important condition for buying coffee from members, suffers from the lenders’ heightened risk perception. Incofin, for instance, pulled out of eastern Congo altogether after a number of loans were not repaid. Much to Shakes' regret, as Kawa Kabuya had indeed repaid its loan to Incofin in full, yet is now also losing this financial oxygen bubble when it is needed most.
And then there is the problem of the kind of buyers who, due to lack of liquidity, condition payments to the cooperative by reselling first the coffee to their end customers. This can easily take several months. In such case, the cooperative is forced to delay repayment of the loan, needlessly prolonging the period used as a basis for calculating the ever-increasing interest, triggering penalties for tardiness and further eroding its profit margin.
‘Rikolto should continue to help us,’ urges Shakes, ‘to find more diverse buyers to spread our risks, but also to acquire assurances that payment does happen immediately after export, so as not to drive the cooperative into a debt morass and interrupt the flow of our exports. We would also like Rikolto to re-engage Kawa Kabuya's former top partners. Colruyt, Coffee Circle and Or Coffee for example, today we miss the kind of solid long-term partners that they used to be for us.'
Accelerated ageing
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'We admit it, we have experienced unexpected quality problems in recent years. Accelerated ageing of coffee between harvesting and export is the name of the phenomenon we had never seen before in the whole region. The coffee sample we sent was deemed good by the buyer, upon which he gave the go-ahead to export the entire container, but upon arrival two months later, that coffee was then suddenly found to have become downright bad during the journey and unmarketable. Which led to huge losses.'
'Rikolto helped us investigate what had gone wrong. We had to adopt a new concept: water activity, and also a new device to measure that water activity. Two coffees with the same water content, but one with high water activity and the other with low water activity, will behave very differently. That first one will age very quickly and lose all its flavours, while the other will stay good for up to two years.'
'Now we know this, and we have also adapted our drying techniques to ensure that moisture content and water activity are both OK from now on: avoid drying fast, because then water is trapped by hardening of the outer layer of the coffee bean, but also slow drying, because then bacteria still have time to develop and ruin your coffee. We are now controlling drying much better and quality problems of the past are completely gone. I therefore hope we will now win back our former buyers.'
Farming becomes our profession
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'The more buyers we have, the more farmers we can help move into a professional coffee chain that rewards quality efforts. And with Rikolto's support, we are now also focusing on diversifying our members' crops, so that food crops are also grown in between and around the coffee plants, for home consumption and local sales. In this way, young people understand that farming is indeed an honourable and viable profession and they start seeing a future again. And we contribute to improved food security.'
Don't leave us alone
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'For the first time in years, we are seeing a change in the attitude of the international community. The indifference of the past 30 years to the tragedy in eastern Congo is gradually giving way to growing involvement and increasing pressure on the armed groups, on the neighbouring countries that support them, on the government in Kinshasa that has to take responsibility, on the companies that thrive on resource theft. How wonderful that would be should lasting peace finally be possible.'
'Despite all the difficulties, Kawa Kabuya has been able to become the reference for coffee cooperatives in the region, with the best price paid to farmers, the best quality offered to buyers and with genuine transparent democratic governance. How much better off would we be if our fields and roads became safe, army and police protect us instead of living on our backs, and more and more people around the world drink our fine coffee?'