Murara Sylvester is a father of five children resident in remote Kirehe district about 17 miles from Rusumo border- for decades, his main activity has been preparing and selling coffee seedlings but now his life is uncertain since Covid-19 struck in early March.
On Monday, Taarifa embarked on a long haul drive to Kirehe district and branched off onto a dusty pothole road that snakes through intimidating hills and valleys and located Murara in Butezi village, Gahara sector.
We found Murara at a water pumping station that supplies 26 gravity tanks in this extremely hilly sector. He is the water station attendant- everyday he comes to this facility to switch on the pump motors to fill the tanks and later in the evening switches off and retires home.
In an exclusive conversation with Murara, Taarifa wanted to get a perspective from the primary contact usually ignored in the coffee production chain.
“I have not received any orders for coffee seedlings since the year begun,” Murara told Taarifa as he pointed to the nursery beds that have been replaced with rice. The look on his face clearly shows Covid-19 has pounded his business.
Murara says, last year he planted 400,000 coffee seedling and were all bought. Coffee seeds take two months in the nursery bed and are transferred to paper wraps in which they also spend another two months before they can be sold off to buyers. Productivity is 450 kg/ha, or about 2–3 kg per tree.
“I sell each coffee seedling at Rwf50 and the variety we have matures in three years to the first harvest of coffee beans,” says Murara, adding that a kilo of coffee has reached Rwf216. The harvesting season is between April and July.
According to Murara, his business employed 30 workers and pays each of them Rwf30,000 per month when orders for coffee seedlings are made. “They are now jobless and we don’t know when the next orders will come,” Murara wonders with a devastating look on his face.
“I have decided to shift to growing rice for home consumption. I have a small plot in the valley where I grow rice these days but I first prepare the rice seedlings in this former coffee nursery bed,” Murara said as he walked Taarifa down to the nursery after switch off the motors at the water pump station.
Rwandan coffee plays a major role in the economy of the country, contributing significantly to foreign exchange earnings and to the monetisation of the rural economy.
However, with the devastating effects of Covid-19 on the global economy, coffee shops and restaurants closed, the demand for coffee has drastically fallen and the negative impact can be seen and felt on Murara in Butezi village, Gahara sector. Murara tends to rice seedlings after a shuttered coffee seedlings business.
The total coffee production for Rwanda ranges between 15,000 MT and 22,000 MT and has been relatively stable, but is slightly on the decline (ICO, 2017; NAEB, 2017). The volume represents about 0.2% of the global coffee production.
Coffee represents about 7% of total export value, and 20% of the total agricultural export value from Rwanda.
Rwanda’s coffees are classified into semi-washed, or “Ordinary Coffee”, and fully washed. The semiwashed is processed at home and generally traded via middlemen and not via coffee washing stations.
Meanwhile, government discourages semi-washed coffee, in order to control quality and make Rwanda’s coffee more competitive on the world market.
However, the Ordinary Coffees are still an important market outlet for the farmers in Rwanda, representing about 24% of the volume and 17% of the value.
In Butezi village there are dozens of coffee farmers most of whom told Taarifa that they bought seedlings from Murara and after harvest, they sell their coffee to mostly middle men. Some take their coffee to washing stations for improved handling.
Bahutiraho Jean Bosco and Ngerageze Straton are coffee farmers in this area and their production quantites are 6 tones per season.
“In march I harvested 200kilograms from half hectare plot. But we usually get a combined 6ton harvest from all plots. Last year we fetched Rwf 1,296,000,” Ngerageze told Taarifa.
Most of the coffee farmers in this part of the country are closely working through the Project of Rural Income through Export (PRICE) according to National Agricultural Export Board (NAEB).
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