Changing coffee production at Mzuzu, Malawi

Twin’s work with the Mzuzu coffee union in Malawi has transformed farming practices there, adding value and improving coffee quality, as well as creating access to a new market for smallholder producers in the UK through Sainsbury’s supermarkets.

Since 2009 Twin has been working on a broad range of activities with the Mzuzu Coffee Planters Co-operative Union to make smallholder coffee production sustainable in northern Malawi.  Twin’s project activities aim to strengthen Mzuzu’s a commercially viable business - through trading, improving its marketing capacity, supporting its access to social and environmental certifications (including Fairtrade and organic) and piloting a sustainable agricultural system, which is now being replicated in a number of areas.

Background

The Mzuzu Coffee Planters Co-operative Union Ltd is based in Mzuzu in northern Malawi.  It was founded in 2007and has around 2,900 members today.  Its coffee is produced across northern Malawi, with a concentration at high altitude in the Misuku Hills, located close to the border with Tanzania.

Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world and 80% of its population relies on agriculture, generating one-third of its GDP (Source: World Bank, 2007-2008)

Mzuzu farmers have experienced productivity problems as a result of the dominant mono-crop estate-style system used to grow coffee.  This system is dependent on inorganic fertiliser, which is unpredictable in price and availability. The system does not provide shade for the coffee, control erosion or recycle farm waste to enhance fertility.

Twin’s work

Twin is working with Mzuzu across a broad range of areas. As well as addressing farming practices through a sustainable agricultural system pilot, now being rolled out in additional areas, Twin has conducted gender workshops, provided marketing support and expertise, and developed a strong trading relationship with the organisation.

Sustainable agricultural pilot

Twin, Finlays, Sainsbury’s and Comic Relief created a consortium as part of the DFiD FRICH initiative in 2009 to support Mzuzu farmers to pilot a sustainable agricultural system.  This pilot has created a model that will allow Mzuzu farmers to continue producing high quality coffee into the future.

It started with 97 smallholder members in the Chanya zone in January 2010. The majority of farmers relied on inorganic fertilisers to produce their coffee on terraces which they had dug out of the hillsides, increasing erosion and topsoil loss.  Sustainable farming methods have been widely embraced by Mzuzu smallholders. These include:

• terracing using deep-rooting grasses;
• planting nitrogen-fixing ground-cover ‘green mulch’ crops;
• shade trees;
• intercropping bananas and other food crops in the coffee;
• and using organic fertilisers manufactured on- and off-farm.

Organic certification has become a real possibility at Mzuzu, and to support this Twin has contributed to the development of a project to convert the majority of Mzuzu coffee to certified organic production.

Marketing

Twin is working with Mzuzu as part of our Joint Marketing Initiative and a three-year marketing agreement has been signed by both parties.  With this initiative, Twin aims to enable smallholder farmers of high quality coffees to sell their produce on secure, sustained and more remunerative terms.  It also helps develop long-term business with buyers and improve the cooperative’s export marketing capacity and knowhow through practical training and mentoring.

Gender

Gender justice and greater involvement of women is an integral part of all of Twin’s programmes.

In early 2011 Twin organised a gender workshop with representatives from three different Mzuzu cooperatives.  This was the first women's workshop to be held at Mzuzu and we made a plan for involving more women in coffee production, as well as looking at producing a new Mzuzu export product: coffee exclusively from women farmers.

We will continue looking at ways to add value for smallholders through women’s inclusion and empowerment.

Next steps

Mzuzu achieved Fairtrade certification in 2009.  In 2010 they exported some 34% of coffee on fairtrade terms.

The cooperative’s management is fully committed to the development of sustainable agricultural practices and has managed to secure additional funding from the Flemish Development Cooperation Agency (FICA) to introduce the practices piloted through the FRICH project to additional 1,500 coffee farmers.