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This loan may have a higher risk but higher impact. Learn more here.

Problem:

Smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda are forced to sell unprocessed coffee to middlemen at less than 5% of the retail value. They do not have financing or resources to add value to their coffee beans. Over 10 million smallholder coffee farmers stay in a vicious cycle of poverty over generations due to this issue.

Solution:

NUCAFE, the National Union of Coffee agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises, is a coffee farmers’ organization founded in 1995. NUCAFE uses a "Farmer Ownership Model" whereby ownership of the coffee remains with the farmers and they are able to use NUCAFE’s processing facilities (for cleaning, drying, grading, roasting, grinding and packaging services) to add value to their coffee beans. NUCAFE makes farmers able to sell their coffee at a much higher price.

There are currently over 200 member associations and cooperatives working with NUCAFE, impacting more than 1.5M individual smallholder coffee farmers. NUCAFE also helps farmer associations and cooperatives sell their produce by marketing their coffee to potential buyers. Members pay a service fee to NUCAFE for using their processing facility and marketing their coffee. Members have been able to increase their income by over 2000%.

Before partnering with NUCAFE the community of farmers in Bunjakko used to sell their coffee unprocessed at USD $0.08 per Kg. With NUCAFE, they are now able to sell their coffee graded at USD $1.76 per kg. Learn more about how NUCAFE has re-written the story of total transformation of coffee farming communities such as Bunjakko Island in this video.

Loan use:

The loan will be used by NUCAFE to help the member associations get a consistent income. NUCAFE will use these funds to pay farmers while their coffee is being sold, so that they can have an income even before all their coffee is sold.