Gihinga Primary School

The small roadside village of Gihinga in Rwanda’s Southern Province has approximately 6,800 inhabitants, most of whom are coffee farmers. Farmers grow coffee, bananas, beans and cassava. Gihinga Primary School was established in 1946 and currently has about 1,300 students enrolled.

old building

interior of old building

According to the Ministry of Education, normal classroom size should be maximum 45 students per room. Gihinga’s student enrollment far exceeded that with approximately 80 students in each of 16 classrooms. The need for extra classrooms was evident as the school was still using one of the original buildings made from mud bricks; the building was in dire need of replacement. Other classrooms were very dark inside and made it difficult for the children to see the blackboard adequately (there is no electricity at the school).

new classrooms

  

Our Community Aid program, in collaboration with Shenga Coffee Washing Station and the local community, built an additional 4 classrooms at Gihinga. The new building was inaugurated in February 2010 and the construction project also included replacing metal roofing sheets in all the classrooms with transparent sheets to allow more light in.

interior new classroom

The Voice of the Farmer

In a previous posting, I talked about the difference between specialty and ordinary Rwandan coffee (see post from June 2009 titled Specialty vs. Ordinary Coffee Processing). Up until about nine years ago, all coffee in Rwanda was processed as ordinary coffee at the farmer’s home. The wet-mills of today were few and far between. The process was very time consuming for farmers who had to remove the pulp using hand operated machines, then clean and dry the beans on straw mats on the ground. This would usually take a farmer all day to do. Farmers would then sell the parchment to a collector who would dry-mill the parchment eventually leaving just the green beans for export.

In 2001, the fully-washed coffee sector in Rwanda took off and eventually more and more wet-mills were built and used to process coffee. Farmers were able to eliminate much of the processing they did at home and sell their cherry to the wet-mills directly after it was harvested. Today there are over 100 wet-mills in Rwanda.


Farmer testimonies reveal the importance of coffee in their lives and the impact of having wet-mills to process the cherry. In Gisaka, Jeannette has been farming coffee since 1952 and has about 200 trees. She said it used to take her all day to process coffee at home but now after she brings her cherry to the wet-mill to process, she can concentrate on tending her fields and growing food such as beans, peanuts and bananas. She said that because of coffee she has been able to send all of her children to school. This year, she will use the money from coffee to rebuild her house that was destroyed.

 
Also in Gisaka, these three women have been farming coffee for 10 years and have between 80-400 trees each. They started growing coffee because of their housing conditions; they were living in mud huts with thatch roofs. Now because of coffee, they have been able to build solid houses using cement and corrugated tin roofs. They said the wet-mill in their village has helped them save time processing coffee. This year they will spend time growing other crops to feed their families and they intend to buy mulch grasses for their coffee fields with the money they earn from selling the cherry to the wet-mill.

 
This farmer started growing coffee in Tanzania in the 1930s before moving to Rwanda around 1970. He has 2,000 trees and says that coffee has meant a lot to his family; when he sees his children dressing-up and going to school, it makes him happy and that is all he needs in life. (click play to hear his testimony).

Pocket Change

During coffee harvest season farmers sell their cherry to a wet-mill which processes it to remove the pulp, mucilage and parchment; eventually leaving just the green bean inside. Using bicycles or baskets on top of their heads to transport the cherry to the mill, farmers are normally paid per kilo of cherry once it’s weighed at the mill. Unfortunately, the price given to farmers is extremely low; Rwandan farmers typically receive 120 Rwf (Rwandan francs) per kilo (about $0.21 cents). Considering that an average farmer only has about 100 trees (each tree only producing on average 5-6 kilos of cherry per year), the math is self explanatory: 100 trees x 6 kgs./tree = 600 kgs. and 600 x .21 cents = $126.00.


Rogers Family Company has committed to change this system. For most Rwandan farmers, coffee is their only income generating crop. They grow food crops such as corn, potatoes and beans, for subsistence but there is usually not enough to sell as well. The money they earn from coffee is used to buy clothing, medicine, pay for children’s school fees or any other need that may arise for the family. Since the cherry price is so low, often farmers process the coffee themselves at home and sell the parchment throughout the year in hopes of getting a better price. However, because it is processed at home, the quality is often questionable.


Rogers Family Company has been trying to increase the minimum payment farmers receive for their cherry at the wet-mill and encourage farmers to produce more fully-washed coffee. Over the last year and a half, we’ve worked closely with the Rwandan Coffee Authority, private exporters, cooperatives and wet-mills to ensure that the coffee we buy is beyond fair trade. If the wet-mills did not pay the farmer enough when he/she sold their cherry at harvest, we asked the wet-mills to make a second payment to the farmer later. At the minimum we asked they increase the price by 50 Rwf ($.08 cents) per kilo. In order to ensure the payments were actually being made, we helped organize and attended the farmer village meetings. Across the country we watched and witnessed as hundreds of coffee farmers lined up to receive a second payment for the cherry they sold to the wet-mill.
  
In Musha, I met Antoine, a farmer with approximately 7,000 trees who has been farming for more than 30 years. Before the wet-mill in his village was built, Antoine processed all of his coffee at home which took up all of his time. Now that he sells his cherry to the wet-mill, he spends less time processing the coffee and more time tending to the trees. He also earned more in 2009 than ever before; in this photo he just received a second payment of 276,000 Rwf ($485)!


At another meeting, I wandered over to a small store to buy a drink. While sipping my coke, a farmer walked in, slapped down 1,000 Rwf ($1.75) on the counter and walked away with a new pair of sandals. I asked him if this was part of the money he just received at the meeting. He nodded and proudly smiled for my camera.

 
The small amount of extra money farmers receive may seem insignificant to anyone else, but to a Rwandan farmer, it makes a big difference. What seems like pocket change to you or me meant a new pair of shoes to this farmer!