Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Project title: Realizing Climate-Smart Coffee in Kericho County, Kenya

Kenya‚ coffee farmers are increasingly struggling with the impacts of climate change, as well as chronically low prices. Rising temperatures, higher variability in weather patterns and the increased occurrence of extreme weather events causing droughts and floods are threatening coffee yields. Diseases such as the Coffee Berry Disease, the Coffee Wild Disease, or the Coffee Leaf Rust, are harming coffee plants and berries and thereby also production. These detrimental developments have an adverse effect on smallholder farmer livelihoods and are causing many of them to abandon coffee cultivation altogether.

In addressing these issues, a partnership between reNature and Agriterra, two Dutch organizations committed to supporting smallholder farmers, was initiated in July 2021 with the aim to design and implement a scalable, climate-smart, low-carbon coffee agroforestry system suitable for the local context of Kericho County, Kenya. The project centers around the development and implementation of regenerative agroforestry Model Farms for the cultivation of coffee that is resilient to pests and climate change and restores soil fertility and biodiversity. The Model Farms are intended to form the foundation for scaling regenerative coffee agroforestry practices that cultivate resilience of the beneficiaries. This will not only increase the farms‚ climate-change mitigation and adaptation capacities but also provide additional environmental and socioeconomic benefits.

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Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

A female leadership training conducted as part of the SDGP project found selected cooperatives to have, on average, between 10-40% membership of women, but who are systematically underrepresented in the decision-making bodies and training-sessions. The SDGP project aims to be gender-transformative, with the intention to play an active role in enabling an environment where the rights of women are recognized, gender relations and positions of women are improved, and women‚ entrepreneurship is boosted, ultimately contributing to SDG 5. During the planned female leadership workshops, the role of women as members, entrepreneurs and leaders will be discussed and together with male and female farmers an action plan will be developed to improve the participation of women at the cooperative level and, subsequently, at the union level. 

The project also aims to address the barriers to youth participation, such as land ownership and the 6-month waiting time for coffee output, which makes setting up a coffee farm or buying a coffee farm difficult. During the planned youth empowerment workshops, the following matters will be addressed: strengthening communication between generations; grouping of youngsters to organise and form a youth-council; developing an intergenerational vision for the future; improving knowledge on cooperative principles amongst youngsters and the importance of youth involvement; and developing ways of working that are innovative for young people. 

Youth involvement is especially being championed by the lead local partner organization, Agriterra, through the formation of youth councils and increasing the number of youth in board positions. This is done from the understanding that rural youth can learn and contribute much more if they are involved in decision-making processes at board level. Agriterra aims to set up 6 youth councils within the 6 cooperatives involved in the project.

The focus on women and youth will result in more and stronger inclusion of the two populations in coffee production and processing, as well as in the governance and leadership of the cooperatives.