Written by Robyn-Leigh van Laren, Story Manager at Long Miles Coffee.
For decades, farming coffee has been considered as a “man’s job”. This is not just the case in Burundi, but the world over. According to the most recent data collected by the World Bank, women make up just over half of Burundi’s population. Some sources say that women make up more than half of the country’s agricultural labor force.
But, any number or statistic without context can be misleading. We could list the number of women that we work with, but what would that number mean in a greater context? It certainly wouldn’t be representative of the global coffee industry, let alone the coffee industry in Burundi. Women are without a doubt significant contributors to the coffee sector in Burundi, but are underrepresented in leadership, decision and policy-making roles.
“In the rural parts of Burundi, women are working more than men. You can often see the men, but the women are hidden from view while managing many other tasks.” – Joy Mavugo
Women in Burundi work a multitude of jobs. One could go as far to say that they have a disproportionate number of roles and responsibilities. Generally, women who are producing coffee are also managing households, raising children, growing and harvesting subsistence crops to either cook or sell at the local market. Some of these women are also taking up seasonal jobs at the coffee washing stations adjacent to their homes where they typically hand-pick coffee to make ends meet- a key but labor-intensive role that has a profound impact on coffee quality.
Not all women in agriculture feel empowered to take up the jobs that men tend to do. Even if they do feel empowered, there is no guarantee that they will be compensated at the same rate as men for their labor. Many people believe that women in coffee should be paid less because their labor is generally less intensive than men.
“Where are the women?”
When we hold meetings with our partnering coffee farmers, more men tend to gather than women. Why is that? Women are often busy with other farm work or household tasks. I would often look around at these meetings and ask, “Where are the women?” People would look up and chuckle at me, the mzungu who can’t wrap her head around the complexities of gender roles in Burundi. From what I’ve come to understand is that women aren’t always intentionally excluded but their often unaccounted for labor will mostly be laughed off because that’s how it’s always been.
Why are we doing this? It was one of the first questions that I wrote down when thinking of running a series celebrating women in coffee. When I asked my colleague Joy Mavugo this question, her response was, “You know, if we were doing a series on men in coffee, we wouldn’t stop to think about this question.”
“If we were doing a series on men in coffee, we wouldn’t stop to think about this.”
Her words stuck with me for weeks. Ironically, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, which is why we’ll be sharing and celebrating the stories of incredible women working in coffee over the next couple of weeks.
This blog post was written by Joy Maguvo, Long Miles Coffee Story Assistant.
Apollinaire Nzobonimpa is a coffee farmer from Nkonge Hill in Burundi and is very involved in maintaining his coffee plantations.
Along with the help of coffee scouts, he is able to manage pruning, mulching and applying fertilizer to his crops. However, there are some tasks, such as applying disease-eliminating coffee spray, that are out of his control and in the hands of the government. As many coffee farmers know, these coffee sprays can be a key to healthy-growing coffee trees. Without them, cherry growth can suffer.
Over time, many coffee farmers in Burundi have been struggling with Urukarakara, a coffee berry disease (CBD). The impact of CBD has been felt nationwide and it’s known that coffee spray could be the resolve many coffee farmers are looking for. Unfortunately, the requests for these cherry-saving chemicals are sometimes met with an unfavorable answer; “the chemicals to help eliminate CBD are very expensive – even the government is not able to get them right now.”
Even so, if the government receives the chemicals, the process to obtain them can still be quite long. Once in the hands of commune agronomists they are given to coffee monitors (i.e. government coffee scouts) who then manage distribution to coffee farmers. With so many coffee farmers in Burundi, the waiting game can prove itself to be costly.
This year, for Apollinaire and many other farmers, a miracle has truly happened! A nationwide coffee spray campaign has taken place to help better manage CBD and ward off the damage from insects.
Along with coffee spray, a powder-based chemical has become available. Not only is it the first time in Apollinaire’s coffee-growing career that he has seen anything like it, other farmers have been equally as amazed. “There is no way to explain the joy we have in receiving this CBD-fighting powder,” said Apollinaire. “We can’t wait to see the good changes!”
With each coffee farmer in Burundi receiving enough powder to spray all of their trees, there is much hope that the negative impact of CBD will be managed…or better yet…eradicated completely.
This blog post was written by Joy Maguvo, Long Miles Coffee Story Assistant.
Gervais Mpabonimana is a coffee farmer from Kabuye Hill. He is 69 years old and is the father of seven children.
After dropping out of Don Bosco School in 1968, he moved in with his parents. In 1974, after their failed attempts at encouraging him to go back, they gave him a plot of land for planting some coffee trees and ordered him to marry. Gervais was married in 1976. That same year, he planted 60 coffee trees on his plot of land. Most would believe this was the beginning of his coffee journey. However, Gervais had other callings he was interested in pursuing at that time.
He became very involved in Catholicism and was a teacher of children. Growing coffee was not his first priority. In 1978, he went to Centre de Formation à la Catéchisme et au Développement (CFCD) in Bujumbura to further train in Catechism and Catholic development. It was one year before the end of this three-year training program that Gervais’ coffee journey truly began.
While home during a summer holiday, a national survey was conducted to determine the number of coffee farmers and coffee trees owned. The survey consisted of a meeting held on Kabuye Hill where each coffee farmer stood up and informed the group of the number of trees they had. During that meeting, Gervais became ashamed to be the farmer who had the fewest coffee trees. Especially since coffee was considered to be one of the crops that brought the most development to the country. From then on, he was determined to make coffee growing a bigger priority for the betterment of his family and country. After three years of farming-focused training in Bujumbura, he began an internship in Belgium. During this internship, he earned a small amount of money he used to purchase more land for planting coffee trees. TODAY, he has 15 coffee plantations with 1,200 coffee trees located in Burundi.
Beyond being a coffee farmer, Gervais remains a dedicated Catechist and since 2003 has been teaching at the Institut Catéchétique Africain. This school used to be in Rwanda (Butare) but it moved to Burundi (Kayanza Province) in 2002. Here, he teaches four lessons. In addition, he teaches three lessons in Ngozi Province at École Reine des Apôtres (Queen of the Apostles School).
While coffee farming continues to be an important part of his life, Gervais also considers it to be a catalyst in helping him serve God freely with less stress. It is because of coffee farming he is able to spend six days a week teaching. His time is split between Kayanza and Ngozi. He has no monthly salary and through his teachings, he only receives what he calls a ‘fanta’ (very little money). This is a unique situation. In the area where Gervais lives, men are typically in charge of securing income for their family and women provide food. However, for Gervais, coffee growing covers everything. “While I consider being a Catechist one of my callings, I also need to make sure my coffee plantations are well-maintained. Those plantations are why my family is standing,” said Gervais.
With such a busy teaching schedule, Gervais is thankful for the Long Miles Coffee Scouts. They play a big role in helping maintain his coffee plantations. “Before, I used to have at least three hours a week of visiting my plantations which wasn’t easy due to my teaching and travel schedule,” said Gervais. “Now, I feel safe in knowing the Coffee Scouts are doing a great job. My worries are less as they are informing me on what is needed at the plantations and I am able to be more efficient with my work.”
Gervais was planning to be retired soon. However, thanks to the Long Miles Coffee Scouts, the only plan he has for retirement is to continue to focus on his coffee farms and add more in the future.
Joy joined Long Miles in 2018, and has been an invaluable member of the Story Team ever since. With a background in public health, she uses every opportunity to share what she’s learned with partner farmers while listening to, and finding ways to share their stories.
What is your earliest memory of coffee?
I grew up seeing coffee being groundin our house because it is my dad’s favorite drink, but I had no idea of where coffee came from. In primary school, I learned that in Burundi we have industrial or export crops that brings foreign currency into the country. At that time, it was cotton, tea, and coffee. Something that confused me was hearing that coffee brings foreign currency into the country, meanwhile my dad was buying it in Burundian francs. But, as I was still a child, I didn’t ask.
How and when did you get involved in the coffee industry?
When I heard about Ben and Kristy [Carlson], before meeting them, I had been told that they are in coffee business. In my mind, being in the “coffee business” was the shops where people used to meet for coffee, places like Café Gourmand in Bujumbura, and other places like that. As I mentioned, I didn’t know anything about coffee apart from seeing my dad drink it. I never thought about working in coffee.
In 2016, during coffee harvest, the Carlsons took me with to visit Bukeye Washing Station. There were two things that surprised me that first time visiting a washing station. One, was seeing so many people working there. Second, was seeing cherries. When they told me that it was coffee, the first question that came to mind was, “Are there two kinds of coffee?” This was the comparison I was making between coffee in the cup (the one I used to see my dad drink, and in the coffee shops), and coffee cherries at the selection tables.
There were a couple of reasons that pushed me to work in coffee. Coffee connects different people from different cultures, different countries, and different continents. Coffee is people. This is the reason that I was interested to learn more about coffee, and is something that I am now proud to be a part of. Of course, there are still many, many things to learn in coffee, but at least today I can help somebody to understand coffee out of the cup.
The second reason that pushed me to work in coffee is to help others withmy degree in Public Health.I thought maybe there are people who need my help, especially in upcountry Burundi where many people don’t have access to information like they do in the city.
What is your role in the coffee supply chain?
I started working in coffee in 2018. My role is to listen to, collect, and share farmers’ stories. Working in coffee means a lot to me. I am working in the Story Team, and we are in communications. Together, we are helping the world understand the story of coffee: its origin, who grows it, what growing coffee looks like, what a coffee farm is like, what happens to coffee at the washing station, what the next step is after processing it at the washing station…
I don’t use my background in public health every day, but there are always opportunities to do it. I have many examples, but I’ll just share one:
I visited a coffee farmer on Gaharo Hill, and during the interview they explained the challenges farmers face, one of them being malaria. Both her husband and baby were sick with malaria at the time. While she was talking, I saw that in front of her house, there was a small farm of vegetables covered with a mosquito net. During our conversation, I asked why the mosquito net was covering the vegetables. She said that it prevented the chickens from eating the leaves. I asked her if she knows the cause of malaria, to which she replied, “It’s mangoes”. I asked her, why mangoes? “Because many people get malaria when it’s mango season”.
I took the time to explain the actual causes of malaria, that mosquitoes are prevalent during mango season because of the rains during that time of year, and how to prevent malaria. It was a really valuable discussion!
Apart from growing coffee, farmers are growing other crops that are good for their health, but don’t always eat them. Through the interviewing process, I’ve been able to help them to understand the relationship between food and health.
Are there any challenges that you think exclude women from working in coffee?
There are no challenges that exclude women from working in coffee. The problem is the lack of information, or having access to false information. For example, women farmers have repeatedly heard something that’s not true, which is that “coffee is for men”. Other women farmers know that coffee can be prepared as a drink, but don’t know that there are many other things to do in coffee. Sometimes, women in Burundi don’t have enough time to research as men do.
When you consider the coffee industry, do you think that women are empowered to be in leadership and decision-making roles?
In the coffee industry the number of women must be less than men, but those women who are there are empowered to be in leadership and decision-making roles.
Is there anything that you would like to learn or do to further your understanding of how coffee is produced or processed?
I would like to improve my photography skills, and how to share information on social media.
Earlier this past summer, Grant Gamble of Culture Coffee Project reached out to us asking if we would like to contribute to a new project that he had somewhat recently launched with Suneal Pabari. Seasoned pros, Grant has put on countless well-known and well-attended coffee events, and Suneal is one of the founders of The Roasters Pack. Fittingly, their brainchild, Leaderboard Coffee, is a coffee subscription- of sorts. Yes, it is a curated selection of ten unlabelled (intended to be tasted blind) coffees you receive in the mail, but Leaderboard has the look and feel of a coffee event- a really fun and educational one at that.
Designed for both coffee enthusiasts and coffee professionals, Leaderboard, “…believe[s] that learning about coffee should be fun, not intimidating.” While receiving ten unlabelled coffees to taste side-by-side is a hugely educational process in itself, Suneal and Grant have gone even further. Firstly, they have created a quiz that has an interface based on the concept of a “real-life-video-game,” and secondly, they have connected with coffee professionals around the globe to create content that helps the players of Leaderboard better identify the coffees they are tasting.
“…learning about coffee should be fun, not intimidating.”
It was for this reason that Grant reached out to us. Ben Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles, along with David Stallings, who handles Roaster Relations for Long Miles, together created a thirty-three minute long video for Leaderboard. In the video, Ben dives into the history of coffee production in Burundi, and David talks about tasting coffees from the Great Lakes region of East Africa, generally and Burundi coffee, more specifically.
Watch the video below, and definitely check out Leaderboard! If you are interested in expanding your coffee palate and learning more about coffee producing countries, processing methods, coffee varieties, and more, Leaderboard is an amazing and fun resource!
Growing up, Aline didn’t know that one day she would work in the coffee sector in Burundi. She joined the Long Miles team back in 2014 as a supervisor of the teams hand-picking parchment coffee for defects. Now, Aline is the Assistant Manager of Coffee Quality Control at Bukeye Washing Station.
What is your earliest memory of coffee?
When I heard about the Long Miles Washing Station on Gaharo hill, I decided to ask if they had a job for me. I had no idea of what happens at a coffee washing station, and didn’t know anything about processing coffee. At the time, the washing station manager told me that there were no jobs for women, that there were only jobs for men. I asked him to give me a chance working there so that he could see that I was capable of learning. After a month, he appreciated how I worked and he offered me a full-time job.
What is your role in the coffee supply chain?
When I started out, I was in charge of supervising the hand-picking team. Now, I am the Assistant Manager of Coffee Quality Control at Bukeye Washing Station.
What does a ‘’typical day’’ look like for you?
During coffee harvest, I do the same thing: control the steps that coffee goes through, especially during the hand-picking stage at the cherry selection tables.
What does working in coffee mean for you?
It’s proof that women , especially in the rural areas of Burundi, are as capable of working in coffee as men.
Are there any challenges that you think exclude women from working in coffee?
I think that the challenges for some women- not just those working in the coffee sector- is that they are working mothers. Working at night can be a big challenge. I think that this is the reason why men say that women are not able to work in coffee, but for me it’s not a question of being able but how many responsibilities a woman has to take on.
When you consider the coffee industry, do you think that women are empowered to be in leadership and decision-making roles?
In the organization that I work for, a woman has the same place as a man. Gender is respected. There are women representatives in all the teams, and they can make decisions in their roles.
Is there anyone in the coffee industry who inspires you?
I don’t know yet.
Is there anything that you would like to learn or do to further your understanding of coffee?
Working in the coffee sector has given me the opportunity of learning many things. I can even teach others what I’ve learnt. In Burundi, there is no school for teaching you about coffee, but working in coffee is a lesson in itself. You can learn as you work. I have learnt about coffee quality, from cherry to parchment, but I still need to learn more about coffee quality from parchment to cup.
Asterie has been a part of the Long Miles Coffee team since 2016. She first joined as a Coffee Scout, and six years later is leading the Heza Coffee Scout team.
What is your earliest memory of coffee?
My earliest memory is the joy that I experienced when I got a job in coffee. I grew up hearing that it’s not “normal” for a woman to work in the coffee sector, and that coffee is for men.
How did you get involved in coffee?
I started working in the coffee sector in 2016. At the time, Long Miles was looking for people to join their team of Coffee Scouts. I wrote a test, and came out on top. I was a Coffee Scouts for two years, and was then promoted as a supervisor of the Coffee Scouts.
What is your role in the coffee supply chain?
My job is to plan and supervise all of the Coffee Scout’s activities that are happening on the coffee farms. I spend all of my time with the team of Coffee Scouts and partnering farmers.
What does a ‘’typical day’’ look like for you?
As a mother, the first thing that I do every day is spending time with my children and feeding them. Then I go to work, and after work I have to prepare supper and spend time with my children.
Asterie with the Heza Coffee Scouts
What does working in coffee mean to you?
To me, it means that coffee is for everyone- it’s not just limited to men.
Are there any challenges that exclude women from working in coffee?
In Burundi, men often have the interpretation that women are not able, but we are able. One challenge is that during coffee harvest the team work longer hours than off-season, which is not possible for women living upcountry. We’re still caught up in a kind of “prison culture”. A woman living outside of the city is still expected to harvest crops and prepare meals, even if her husband is around. If you’re out of your house after 7pm, you can be considered as a woman who “took the place of a man” in the house. When we work less hours than men, it doesn’t mean that we’re not able but have to continue with other activities at home.
When you consider the coffee industry, do you think that women are empowered to be in leadership and decision-making roles?
Yes. At Long Miles, women are represented but when I look around my neighborhood, women are considered as people of the kitchen or valleys (where people have to look for food). Coffee is considered to be a crop for men because it brings money, and where there is money there is a place for decision-making…and women aren’t considered able to make these kinds of decisions.
What does gender equity in coffee look like?
This is hard for me to say because I’ve never worked for anyone other than Long Miles. The only thing that I can say is that gender equality looks like women being represented in every team. If you compare the number of men and women working in coffee, men outnumber women. I think this happens because when companies are looking for workers, women are often busy with other work so they miss out on the information but the men are always there.
Is there anyone in the coffee industry who inspires you?
I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.
Is there anything that you would like to learn or do to further your understanding of coffee?
I have learned many things about how to take care of coffee farms, and I know a bit about cherry processing but I still want to learn more about processing parchment coffee.
Bernadette pruning the coffee trees on her family’s farm.
Bernadette is a partner coffee farmer from Munyinya hill in Burundi. She is also a member of the Kerebuka Coffee Association that encourages women involved in coffee to know their value. Her earliest memory of coffee was planting it together with husband just after they got married, to help raise their family.
What is your role in the coffee supply chain?
I am a coffee farmer.
What does a ‘’typical day’’ look like for you?
I spend my time doing farm work on our family’s land, and looking for food. I was also chosen by the government agronomists to supervise the agricultural activities happening on Munyinya hill.
Are there any challenges that exclude women from working in coffee?
From my experience, men often minimize a woman’s value. They say that we’re not able and we just accept that. We know that we are able, but the problem is that we’re scared to show our capacity. In Burundi, women have to wait for the men in our families to make the decisions. This is one of the reasons why I encourage women living on Munyinya hill to go to school. People who go to school have confidence.
An example that I can share is that some women in our association have had the courage to ask their husbands for their own coffee farms so that they can earn their own money. By doing this, they don’t have to rely on their husbands when deciding how this money should be spent. Unfortunately, some of these women still have to wait for their husbands to decide how to use their money.
What does gender equity in coffee look like?
The number of women in coffee is limited, and this needs to change for there to be gender equity in coffee.
Is there anything that you would like to learn or do to further your understanding of coffee?
No, I’m getting too old. I don’t need to learn more things.
Written by Robyn-Leigh van Laren in collaboration with ROEST Coffee
Every step that coffee takes in the process from seed to cup impacts its quality. Ensuring coffee quality at every touch point has been a steep learning curve for the Long Miles Coffee team, and is something they are continuously learning to improve with every coffee harvest that comes to pass.
“Could we actually produce specialty coffee in Burundi?“
The Carlson family at Bukeye Washing Station.
When Long Miles’ co-founders, Ben and Kristy Carlson, moved to Burundi in 2011, they quickly realized that the most central place to see transformative change in the lives of coffee farmers and the quality of their coffee was at the washing station. In early 2013, the Carlsons built Bukeye, the first Long Miles Washing Station, with the underlying goal of answering the question, “Could we actually produce specialty coffee in Burundi?”
That same year, Lauren Kagori (née Rosenberg), a PhD candidate from South Africa, joined the Long Miles Team as their first Farmer Relations Officer. Kagori’s role was to understand coffee farmers’ relationship to the washing station. As they began to build trust and work with the coffee farming communities around the washing station, it became clear to Kagori that farmers’ greatest challenge to coffee quality was the lack of access to inputs: fertilizer, lime, mulch, and to some degree access to loans to pay laborers to work on their farms.
“You don’t just engage with farmers a month or two before harvest. It’s a year-round effort.”
Lauren Kagori, Long Miles Coffee’s first Farmer Relations Officer.
By the end of their first harvest, Long Miles produced only eighty bags of coffee- just a quarter of a container. Needless to say, the coffee didn’t taste very good that year and many roasters rejected the lots upon arrival in the United States. “We learned that you don’t just engage with farmers a month or two before harvest; it’s a year-round effort”, Kagori explains.
This was a turning point for Long Miles. They had built a washing station, invested in a community of smallholder coffee growers, and grown a team of people. But there was an obvious limit to the return on their investment if they didn’t invest in bottom lines that went beyond profitability.
Improving Coffee Quality on the Farm
The Long Miles team came up with all sorts of innovative ideas to help guide farmers on how to improve their coffee’s quality. The first set of interns spent hours perusing local paint stores for the exact shade of red that resembled a ripened coffee cherry. The idea was to paint the bases of woven baskets that farmers generally use to collect hand-picked coffee cherries. It quickly went from baskets to dipping small wooden chips in the same red paint that farmers could easily slip in and out of their pockets to compare their ripening cherries against. Back at the washing station, a borehole was drilled so that their team could start processing coffee with clean groundwater instead of water from a nearby river.
Around that time, another challenge was rising, both at the farm level and on the cupping table: the Potato Taste Defect. It took a trip to visit an established coffee producer in Rwanda and interviews with Long Miles’ partner roasters to realize that Potato Taste Defect was a real issue- not just in Burundi, but in neighboring coffee-growing countries too. That’s how the Long Miles Coffee Scouts came to be.
Led by Epaphras Ndikumana, Social and Environmental Impact Leader at Long Miles, the Coffee Scouts guide partner farmers through the cherry picking process on their farms while also scouting for and removing any antestia bugs (the insect linked to the Potato Taste Defect). The Coffee Scouts also encourage farmers to practice floating cherries at home and then again at the washing stations. Standing side-by-side with farmers at the washing stations, the Scouts help to hand-sort their cherries for ripeness and visible defects. Back on the farm, they distribute indigenous and shade trees to partner coffee farmers, encouraging them to plant green manures to improve soil health, mitigate climate change and the productivity of their coffee trees. The Coffee Scouts have been pivotal in improving the quality of Burundi coffee, and the Potato Taste Defect has since become increasingly less common on our cupping tables.
“The activities of our social projects help partner coffee farmers to improve their agricultural practices which increases the productivity and quality of their coffee in the long run”, Ndikumana says. He has done extensive research on how to improve the productivity of Burundian farmers’ coffee trees and soil health, initiating programs like the PIP approach (translated from French as ‘Integrated Farm Plans’) and Farmer Field Schools within the farming communities that Long Miles works with in Burundi.
Long Miles’ Coffee and Quality Production Manager, Seth Nduwayo, adds to this by explaining that, “Our protocols, standards and communication are the most powerful tools that help us to produce quality coffee in a systemized way. We don’t only make efforts to perform well but try to make sure we perform more consistently while also aiming to improve our performance.” Ensuring coffee quality quietly continues long after harvest has ended at the dry mill. Nduwayo and the Long Miles team spend weeks at a time, following their coffee through innumerable quality steps at the mill: from hulling to grading, density sorting, handsorting, weighing, and eventually loading containers for export.
Green grading and sample roasting
On the other side of the world, David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations, ensures that coffee goes through meticulous quality steps once it reaches the Long Miles Coffee Lab in North America. He starts by measuring the water activity, performing a moisture and UV analysis of the coffee weighing and then roasting each sample using our ROEST. All the relevant physical data about each sample is documented before the process is repeated over and over again before samples are sent to their roasting partners across the globe.
During coffee season, Stallings typically processes and on ROEST around 120 samples a week:
“The ROEST sample roaster may be the most perfect small-scale machine yet designed to explore the many different aspects of coffee roasting that I learned about through various roasting systems. The capability to develop profiles based on different parameters and the machine’s ability to develop coffee remarkably evenly, coupled with its ease of use and maintenance, make it an essential tool in my professional life.”
It would be remiss not to acknowledge that there is countless research, processes, and tools, like the ROEST sample roaster, used at every touchpoint along coffee’s journey, but ensuring the quality of Long Miles’ coffee really comes down to people. Each coffee farming family that Long Miles works with. By continuing to listen to their thoughts and understand their challenges and needs, they continue to put steps in place to improve the quality of their coffee. The team of Coffee Scouts, working tirelessly throughout the year guiding partner farmers on best agricultural practices. It’s every member of the Long Miles team, investing in the long-term impact of smallholder coffee farmers in East Africa and the coffee they produce.
