RWANDA – Rwanda Coffee farmers’ federation has secured Rwf60 million (US$556,000) funding for adoption of internationally accepted coffee packaging bags from Bangladesh that will enable them to leverage coffee export on global markets.
The funds donated are part of efforts to sustain the coffee sector which has been supported in the last eight years by a coffee promotion project- The Project for Rural Income through Exports (PRICE) under the National Agriculture Export Development Board (NAEB).
According RFCC the coffee sacks distribution program is expected to benefit 18,700 farmers grouped in 86 coffee farmer’s cooperatives in 14 districts, reports The New Times.
Theopista Nyiramahoro, the Chairperson of RCCF highlighted that the coffee bags are part of a sustainable plan that will enable farmers to expand their coffee export market as the PRICE project closes its activities at the end of the year.
“This is one of the sustainable plans that we have started after witnessing growth in coffee produce among farmers. We have already ordered for the sacks from Bangladesh which will arrive by December, so that we can embark on distribution,” she said.
Rwanda has a national coffee production targets ranging from 267, 000 to 420,000 bags per year and the development could boost the country’s efforts.
Other key drivers of Rwanda’s coffee exports is the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) on China’s e-commerce platform.
Rwanda and the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2018 signed an agreement that opened doors for small businesses in Africa to take part in the cross-border electronic trade by availing their products to the Chinese market through Tmall, a subsidiary online platform of Alibaba.
As a result, several brands of Rwandan single-origin coffee are already available for sale on this platform.
In May about 1.5 tonnes of roasted Rwandan coffee beans from Gorilla Coffee brand were sold within a minute during an online live streaming event which had about 20 million fans.
This was the second time for such an event to be organised by the Rwandan embassy in China. Earlier this year, in a similar event held in Hangzhou City, up to 2,000 packets of Rwandan coffee was sold in about 10 minutes.
NAEB earlier this year announced that the country will next year in July, host the third World Coffee Producers Forum that will bring together 1,500 people from over 40 coffee-producing countries.
In response to the announcement, Coffee farmers and processors from across the world will meet in the country to assess the challenges in the coffee value chain.
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