Rainforest Alliance shares good practices to address issues around coffee producers

By Elias Hakizimana.

Rainforest Alliance (RA) a certification organization that works closely with smallholder farmers, coffee companies and different stakeholders within the coffee sector urged different stakeholders to embrace some good interventions in tackling issues around coffee producers.

The message was delivered in Kigali on February 15, 2023, during the AFCA 2023 Sustainability Day, with the theme: “Improved Farmers resilience through Regenerative Agriculture and Integrated landscape approaches.”

This annual event is currently organized by African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA). This year, the event embarks on regenerative agriculture whereby all coffee partners are urged to improve their sustainable livelihoods through various landscape approaches and conservation practices.

Speaking to The Inspirer, Mrs. Rashida Nakabuga, Rainforest Alliance Country Director in Uganda, and steering Rwanda and Burundi said that the sideline conference aimed at looking at some of the issues affecting coffee producers and how stakeholders can discuss solutions to craft a way forward.

“We have been looking at sharing the lessons that other stakeholders can look at and lean from, and specifically in Uganda, we have quite a number of representations from research from government, the business is of course to really discuss some of the things that we do,” Nakabuga said.

Copying with climate change

Nakabuga said that climate change is the major threat that is around coffee farming sector.

“Apparently, we are seeing that producers are affected by climate change, and within our standards, we try as much as possible to have trainings of capacity building to ensure that around this issue of the environment, we come up with solutions or tools that can help the producers to find out a solution,” she said.

Regenerative Agriculture

Nakabuga explained ‘Regenerative agriculture’ as something that can bring solutions with a compilation of necessary tools, activities and interventions towards addressing climate change.

“It is a new way of looking at things whereby producers are able to do what they have been doing in their farms, but also have that keen eye on top of the activities that can help them avert issues of climate change,” she noted.

Among the threats that can affect the future use of farms, Mrs. Nakabuga gave an example of deforestation with a bit of land degradation, adding that regenerative agriculture as the new topic to look at, can help producers to have their work more sustainable.

Apart from certification, Rainforest Alliance has many interventions that are implemented in collaboration with producers.

“We look at multiple issues that are affecting farmers and as they mention, keeping the environment is one of them, although our broader aspect looks at people and nature, we want to see how people live harmoniously with the nature, and of course we do not indulge deforestation, we look at keeping farms sustainable for the future generation and we keep on innovating specific things that we can look at such as regenerative agriculture.” Mrs. Nakabuga said.

Landscape issues 

Rainforest Alliance is looking possibly on how to work with multiple stakeholders in a specific area.

Mrs. Nakabuga said that they work with other stakeholders such as financiers beyond coffee certification to ensure that other issues that are affecting producers are addressed.

She also explained that integrated landscape approach helps people with different commodities to work together to address issues around their activities.

AFCA 2023 Sustainability Day gives an emphasis on regenerative agriculture and landscape approaches as the future of coffee sector. It has been observed that gender equality and social inclusion are critical towards farmer prosperity, whereby communicating with farmers in their native language has been advised.

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