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!
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.
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.
A conversation with Long Miles co-founder, Ben Carlson.
It’s always been our vision to be transparent about coffee harvest and production in Burundi. While our mantra is to hold on to hope despite any challenges we might face, the realities of this year’s coffee harvest has stretched our team and the coffee communities that we work with.
Why was coffee harvest in Burundi small this year?
BC: It’s a complex answer. Like our friend and former Managing Director, Lauren Kagori (née Rosenberg) likes to say, “In Burundi, simple is complex and complex is simple.” Overall, there are four things that I would say contributed to the size of Burundi’s harvest this year.
Soil health. The World Bank recently released a report focused on unpacking climate fragility in Burundi. According to their research, Burundi loses almost 38 million tons of soil and 4% of its gross domestic product to land degradation every year. Half of the households in the country depend on coffee for their livelihoods. The coffee sector alone brings in 90% of the country’s foreign revenue, but over the last forty years severe soil erosion has led to a two-thirds decrease in coffee production, pushing millions back into poverty;
Fertilizer. We can’t access fertilizer in the country, and it’s illegal to purchase it outside of Burundi. You can only purchase fertilizer from one semi-privatized company in Burundi, but they don’t produce a fertilizer meant for coffee. Usually, we have to place an order for and purchase fertilizer through Burundi’s national coffee board, ODECA (translated from French as “Coffee Development Office”). From our experience, the delivery of fertilizer is always delayed and never available in the quantities that we need;
Rain. It’s apparent and out of our control. The rainy season in Burundi typically runs from the end of March/beginning of April through May, but over the last three years the rains have stopped just before May. If we had healthy soil and fertilizer, the rain could have stopped and the impact on the coffee crop might have gone unnoticed;
Old coffee trees. A majority of the coffee trees in Burundi were planted between the 1930s and 1960s under Belgian colonial rule. The newest coffee trees were most likely planted in the 1980s. We’re talking about coffee trees that are about forty-years old! Generally speaking, coffee trees should be replaced every fifteen to twenty years. When we introduced our inaugural pruning campaign and encouraged partner coffee farmers to stump their older coffee trees, it was incredibly difficult to get them on board. It still is! Up until that point, stumping coffee trees was unheard of.
“In Burundi, simple is complex and complex is simple.”
What did we expect this coffee harvest, and what did we actually get?
BC: We expected 1.2 million kgs of harvested cherry. The reality is that we might have reached 500,000 kgs. That’s less than 50% of our expected production, which means 50% less revenue for the farming communities that we work with. Added to this, we’re coming off the back-end of a low harvest in 2020 which means that coffee farmers in Burundi should have experienced a peak in production this year. This all goes back to cyclicity. In 2019, we hit 20% of our average production. In 2020, we hit 50%. This year, the country as a whole hit between 40-45% of its average production.
We were hoping to do more controlled (anaerobic-styled) fermentations using our newly shipped Jacky Bin technology, which we’ve ended up doing but not in the quantity that we expected. With shipping delayed worldwide, our Jacky Bins took much longer than expected to get from Australia to the Dar es Salaam port. They then needed to be trucked from Tanzania across the border into Burundi where they took a couple of weeks to clear customs before our team could eventually collect them. Needless to say, the Jacky Bins got to our washing station a few weeks shy of the end of harvest. We missed the mark there, but are excited to grow this side of our coffee production in the future.
Our goal was also to increase the number of coffee farming families that we work with to maximise our impact, but the number of farmers delivering to our washing stations this season has actually declined. Most farmers across the country have produced between 25-40kg of cherries this season. When you’re producing this amount of cherry, it’s not worthwhile processing and delivering to any washing station.
Is this an issue that just Long Miles is facing?
BC:No, this isn’t a Long Miles thing. It’s happening to coffee producers country-wide.
BC:Over the last two years, there’s been a new coffee authority, ODECA, regulating the coffee sector. This kind of turnover happens regularly in Burundi. ODECA has taken over a majority of previously privatized washing stations. With the last three years being low production years, farmers haven’t delivered high yields to their washing stations which means that ODECA hasn’t processed much coffee. Added to this, privately and co-operative owned washing stations were paying a higher price than semi and government-owned washing stations like ODECA’s.
In what we presume is an attempt for them to find more equity, they banned transit centres. This has meant that washing stations have had to collect coffee only from the farmers adjacent to their stations, or those farmers willing to travel further to reach them. In some ways, this is helpful as there’s a better concentration of coffee and farmers who have more direct access to the market.
This is no surprise, but Burundi is a landlocked country. We’ve often faced challenges to get coffee out of the country timely, but in times like these it can take even longer to export coffee. We also can’t dry mill coffee on our own. Applying for a dry mill licence is surrounded by incredible bureaucracy and red tape in Burundi, and there aren’t many options when it comes to where we can mill our coffee. In previous years (this one included), our team has travelled the country looking for options. The dry mill that we’ve previously used is struggling to renew their licence this year, and there are a landslide of challenges that follow suit from this.
“…this isn’t a Long Miles thing. It’s happening to coffee producers country-wide.”
What does all this mean?
BC: This is possibly our best harvest quality in the nine years that we’ve been producing coffee in Burundi. The improved quality of our coffee could be due to the low harvest over the last three years. If you were to draw a comparison between coffee and wine production, this kind of thing sometimes occurs on wine estates that are producing wine from older vineyards. We’re really excited about the coffees that we’ve produced and are working with the same hills, but the reality is that we’ve produced smaller micro-lots this year.
Sourcing coffee is also a unique challenge this year. Previously, we’ve sourced coffees from neighboring producers that have stood out to our team on the cupping table. This year, coffee is limited country-wide so it’s looking like sourcing coffee won’t be possible.
“The sobering reality is that our combined coffee production in 2019, 2020 and 2021 don’t add up to our coffee production in 2018.”
Our team is trying their best to make sure that all our partnering roasters get coffee, but we’re not going to be able to meet everyone’s demands this year and expect to be able to offer less coffee across the board. The sobering reality is that our combined coffee production in 2019, 2020 and 2021 don’t add up to our coffee production in 2018. Knowing the realities of coffee production in Burundi, we’ve recognized the need to be versatile which is one of the reasons why we’re expanding our operations in Kenya and Uganda.
Even thought this year’s coffee harvest has been challenging to navigate, we are incredibly grateful for the coffee communities that we work with and the continued support from our roasting partners across the globe. Thank you. We’re excited to share this year’s coffees with you!
Do you have any questions about this year’s coffee harvest in Burundi? Please get in touch with us!
“I have young sons who must have stolen the camera and taken pictures without me knowing.”
Damien is a seventy-seven-year-old coffee farmer from Nkonge hill in Burundi who seems to carry his walking cane, worn leather hat and good sense of humour everywhere he goes. The last time that Damien held a copy of his photograph was when he applied for his national identity card in the early 1960s.
He waved his cane wildly in the air a couple of times when talking about his photos, laughing at himself when he couldn’t quite make out what he had tried to capture. “I have young sons who must have stolen the camera and taken pictures without me knowing,” he told us while flicking through his stack of printed photos for the first time. Damien comes from a big but tightly-knit family. He has over thirty grandchildren, and the youngest love walking to his house to spend time with their sokuru1.
“In our family, everyone helps with coffee. During the coffee harvest, we all pick our coffee cherries and carry them to the washing station.”
My grandchildren and neighbor’s children. They were playing together, and I asked them to raise their hands so that I could take their photo. I enjoy playing with my grandchildren. They come to my house to play. I can also ask them to help me with things if my wife is not at home, like fetching water.
My house is on the left. These clothes were out to dry. We use tree branches to hang our clothes on.
My grandchildren are in this photo. They were playing with the neighbors’ children when they asked grandpa to take a photo, then others came who also wanted to be in the picture. I enjoy having a big family. We are close and have good relationships.
Beans are very important in Burundi. I think all over the world they are eating beans. We eat more beans than Rwanda.
This cow belongs to my niece. It has its own room in their house. It’s really fat, which pleases me.
My neighbor was sitting in front of his banana trees. He took this position just for the photo.
Footnotes
Sokuru (Kirundi: grandfather)
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process, but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
We’re often asked the question, “How do I begin working with Long Miles?”
Irrespective of your size or location, the process always begins the same: Talk to us. Whether you are buying one bag or five containers, we want to know you. Few industries are as relational as coffee and we take this element of our industry very seriously – it is our sincerest pleasure to do so. The best way to be in touch is to email David Stallings, who handles Roaster and Importer Relations.
Regardless of where you are located and how much coffee you are looking to source from and/or through Long Miles, our goal is always the same: To interact directly with you and to keep you connected to a transparent and equitable supply chain.
Once you reach out we will schedule a phone/Zoom call or continue the conversation over email, whatever is best for you and the time zones we find ourselves working to reconcile. Together we will discuss your needs in many areas: The types of coffees you are looking for, the volumes of coffees you are looking for, and more. From there we will work together on a plan that works for your business. This can look any number of ways. Typically one of two primary paths will be decided upon:
Roasters purchasing less than a full pallet (ten bags) of coffee from any given origin in any given year are typically referred to our importing partners – more on this below. In most cases and markets, our importing partners take a certain amount of Long Miles coffee into their position specifically with the intention to service our smaller clients. This is not done, by any means, to “hand-off” smaller roasters. In fact, we began operating this way to make sure that our one bag clients were receiving the exact same level of care and attention as our largest clients. As coffee farmers, producers, and exporters, we are not expertly suited to handling sampling and contracts for the smallest of our partners. We remain, however, 100% committed to these partnerships and are available by email, phone, WhatsApp, etc., at any time in order to make sure you have the tools necessary to represent Long Miles coffees in the marketplace. As stated above, regardless of size, we want every partner to be and feel as connected to the supply chain as they wish.
For roasters buying ten+ bags from any given origin each year, you will liaise directly with David for samples, etc. At the appropriate time, David will connect you to our importing partner in your market for contracting, etc.
Once the coffee leaves the country of origin, the primary contact for all things logistics-related will be the importing partner to whom you were introduced by our team. These critical partners will see the coffee safely from port to port, oversee the legal process of getting the coffee into the country/region of delivery, and oversee the logistical process of getting the coffee from the port and into a warehouse. Finally, they will be your primary point of contact for releasing the coffee from the warehouse, paying for the coffee, and seeing that the coffee gets to your business. All of that being said, our team remains at your service throughout the entire process. Whether you have a question about the current state of the coffee or a question surrounding information related to the coffee itself, we are and always will be here for you.
David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations. Photo by Julianna Stallings.
To better understand why we operate as we do, it may be helpful to note something about who, exactly, Long Miles is. As owners and operators of washing stations in multiple East African nations, we are coffee producers. As owners of farms, we are coffee farmers. We are also coffee exporters. There are other labels that can be applied to Long Miles in East Africa but these are the most important for the sake of this guide.
It may also be helpful to make clear what Long Miles is not. Most notably, Long Miles is not a coffee importer. There are a number of implications associated with this. Firstly, and most importantly, we partner with importers. We are frequently asked questions such as, “Can we buy directly from you and not involve an importer?” The simple answer to that is, “No, that is not possible.” It’s not possible because it’s not legally possible. Unless you live in the country in which the coffee was produced, it must be legally exported by an entity and it must be legally imported by another. There is no way around this. The closest thing that we can do to not involve an importer is to air freight our coffee directly to you. Even then, someone is technically importing the coffee, whether that be your business or a representative you hire. Furthermore, while there are legitimate reasons to occasionally air freight coffee, it is by no means a sustainable approach to coffee logistics – economically or ecologically.
Secondly, the importing partners we work with differ from market to market. We partner with companies based on a certain set of criteria: A general alignment on vision surrounding the purported goals of specialty coffee, the degree to which key roaster partnerships in the market endorse the importer, how expert the importer is in that particular market, how reasonably priced the importer is, etc. No single one of these is the most important factor under consideration. Rather, we weigh each of these points and consider the complete picture. If you are of the size that you are purchasing full or near-full container loads, our logistics team would be more than happy to liaise with an importer of your choice.
The third implication of not being a coffee importer is the fact that we do not typically have an Offer List, nor are we always able to clearly answer questions surrounding the exact final price of any given coffee. We will always be able to tell you the price to purchase the coffee from the country of origin, as this is the price we sell the coffee to importers for. That said, importers provide a service – and no small one at that. Not only are they handling global logistics, they also finance the coffee from the time that it leaves the country of origin to the time your roastery or business takes possession of it. There is a cost associated with shipping, importation, customs clearance, etc., and then the importer also needs to include a margin to cover their own expenses and to make a small profit. On top of all of this, coffee is nearly always bought and sold in U.S. dollars. If your roastery is located somewhere in the world where you will be invoiced in a currency other than USD, then of course the exchange rate and the exact time of the currency exchange needs to be taken into consideration, as well. We do know, generally, the prices charged by our importing partners and will do our best to provide a reasonably accurate quote upon request. Furthermore, we will be more than happy to connect you with our importing partners in order to get an exact logistics quote.
We are writing this post in early June, 2021. The Burundi harvest season is just beginning to ramp up. As such, if you are interested in beginning a relationship with Long Miles Coffee, and particularly if you are interested in purchasing Burundi coffee, now is the ideal time to reach out and make a plan surrounding this harvest.
“We know that people who buy the coffee are interested to know where it comes from.”
With her loveable personality and seemingly endless wisdom, Dorothy is an anchor in her community. At forty-three years old, she’s no stranger to farming coffee. Her family has been growing it since the 1970s. Farming coffee isn’t difficult, she says, but it takes diligence and hard work.
“Coffee is like raising a child. You have to wash them, nurture them, and look after them.”
The happiest moment in Dorothy’s life was when she learned that she was pregnant. Having been told by doctors that she wouldn’t be able to conceive, falling pregnant with her first daughter (and the five children that followed) was a tremendous source of joy.
Dorothy tries to include her children in the farming process as much as she can, passing on what she’s learned from her grandmother. Growing up, Dorothy’s mom gave her to her grandmother to be raised because she had little means to do so by herself.
“My grandmother became the person who taught me about life and the way to live. She taught me everything I know.”
When she goes out to work on their family’s fields, her youngest daughter tends to follow. She’s recently been teaching her children about the effects of soil erosion, and what they can do to protect the soil. Together, they are planting vegetables around their home and in the small plot of land behind their house to prevent the soil from eroding in the future.
“What is most important though is to lead by example. If I pick up a hoe, they’ll follow and also pick up a hoe.”
Dorothy’s hope for her children is that they finish school but continue to farm, because to her, farming is life.
“The legacy that I would like to leave is to plant coffee trees, so that my children can look at them in the future and say, ‘My mom planted these’.”
“I want to teach them that those coffee trees are not permanent; that they must change them when they get old, so that their children will see them in the future.”
“I was taking photos, hour by hour, of my everyday activities. When you wake up, you wash your face and brush your teeth.”“I was going to plant yams.” “An association has helped farmers to keep bees. I was bored staying home, only doing housework. So, I thought let me go out and work with others. As a woman, if you just do housework people think you are not a very important person. I haven’t got a lot of honey…yet.”“I gave my children each a chicken and one rooster to share. I gave each of my blessings a blessing. Now we will see who gets more chickens. It’s like a test of the blessings. I have to teach them how to have a small business. We don’t know. If school doesn’t go well, the children can start with an idea of what they can do in the future.” “We were ready to go to church.” “I took this because of climate change. There is a disease affecting the coffee trees. The coffee cherries are not nice. Some have not ripened, others have dried out. I threw this coffee away.”
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
“I liked seeing other people’s photos and hearing their opinions. Doing that, getting closer as a community, helps us to grow.”
Salvator is a forty-two year old coffee farmer from Gaharo hill in Burundi. He comes from a big family, and is a father to four young children- all of whom he dotes on.“Family is so important to me, especially children. Without them, you cannot be happy.”
During the week, Salvator is not just focused on farming. He is also a member of a Village Savings and Loan Association, the Red Cross, and a traditional brick-making association. It’s not uncommon for people to travel all the way from Bujumbura, the country’s capital city, to the northern province of Muramvya1 to buy the bricks that are made in this region.
“One of the association’s laws is ‘ubuntu’ or humanity. It is important for me to have ubuntu where I live, in my community.”
To have “Ubuntu” is to respect, love and help each other so that we can grow together. In Kirundi (the local language spoken in Burundi) “Ubuntu” refers to the grace and humanity of each person that can be shown to other people. It is a complex term that comes from the Bantu languages mostly spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has many interpretations and definitions, but is commonly translated as, “I am because we are.”
“My mom is on the right with my sister who was carrying a baby. They were preparing traditional banana wine that we were going to give as a gift to a relative who was having a party. This is important to me, because no one can manage to prepare a party alone without the help of family, neighbors, and friends. We also used to prepare the wine to drink at home but now there is a disease that attacks the bananas, turning the plant’s leaves yellow. When one banana is attacked, all the trees in the plantation are infected. I had 23 bananas trees but now I have only 5. This disease has particularly affected Munyinya2 hill where you can only see a desert where there were once bananas plantations…”
“A salon that belongs to my brother-in-law. He promised to teach me how to style hair.”
“Our Village Savings and Loan Association of twenty members from the neighborhood. We meet twice a month, and everyone contributes the money he/she has. We use this money to give loans to the members and they reimburse with interest. After one year everyone receives the amount they contributed, and we share the interests from loans.”
“I am a member of an association called Dufyature turwanye nyakatsi (Kirundi: “Let’s make bricks and fight against houses made entirely of straw”). We make bricks to sell. This man was finalizing our kiln so that we could fire the bricks. After the sale, we keep the capital in the association’s fund, share the profits, and pay communal tax. We manufacture these bricks ourselves without outside labor and we sell them twice a year.”
“The man had just helped this woman putting the bricks down and she was happy because they were heavy and difficult to carry. The people who do this job have to climb over a mountain to carry the bricks from where they are made to the main road. It’s hard work that is done by poor people who don’t have another choice.”
Footnotes
Muramvya is a province in the central part of the country, and also Salvator’s home province.
Munyinya hill is a distinct geo-political region in the Muramvya Province.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
“You should never expect something from someone, but we can grow together. Every time I see my friends, we have the same greeting, “Mugenzi, ntuzerinze.”
My friend, don’t expect something.”
Concilie took on the moniker Mama Claude after the birth of her eldest son, Claude. In Burundi (as in many African countries), it’s tradition that a mother takes on the name of her firstborn child. Her wonderful sense of humor, poise, and humility seem to know no bounds.
Mama Claude’s modest brick home, with its teal-blue door and walkway lined with banana trees, is built close to the dirt road that runs through Gahaga hill in Burundi. She lives here with a brood of children and grandchildren- not all hers. If you ever pass by her house, it’s rare to find her there. She’s most likely out working in a field somewhere, whether it’s her own plot of land or helping a friend. As an active member of a Women’s Village Savings and Loan Association, and the Red Cross Association, she’s always busy with something.
Most mornings, she’s up before the sun, cooking breakfast for her family and small team of laborers before heading out the door for the day, a thermos of hot tea in hand.
Mama Claude started farming in 1970, when she was just sixteen years old. She doesn’t just farm coffee; she’s also a tea farmer, and grows an assortment of subsistence crops to sell and feed her family. To her, growing coffee is the means to nourishing her family. Over the years, she’s divided up 600 coffee trees between her eleven grown children, leaving her now with just sixty to look after.
“When I was younger, I was stronger and could farm more quickly.”
At age sixty-six, she now finds it more difficult to farm. The changing climate has brought about significant challenges to coffee farmers in Burundi: prolonged drought, delayed rains and at times not enough rain. The soil, she says, is not as fertile as it used to be and erosion occurs more frequently. Before, people in her community used to plant without using fertilizer and could expect high yields. Now, it’s difficult to grow crops without animals or fertilizer because the soil has become too acidic.
“It’s sad to see someone farming who doesn’t get production. We have to work together to improve our production, our well-being and the well-being of those who buy our crops.”
“I was in my kitchen cooking dinner. I was going to cook taro1 on firewood and had just lit a lamp that I bought on credit. Sometimes my children help me to cook but this is my job.”
“This is Melanie. We are in an association called Twungurane ubumenyi which means “Improving our skills together”. We’ve been taught how to build a kitchen garden. I took this picture because she has a nice kitchen garden with many kinds of vegetables. You cannot be a member of this association without having a kitchen garden.”
“An employee who was painting our new house with red-colored cement. Even if building a house requires a lot of money, it provides good health and honor in the community. As the house has many rooms, we will be hosting guests. We will give our old house to our young children who are still studying, and we hope that they will transform it.”
“A man who was looking for clay. In one ditch, you can find different kinds of clay. At the top, there is a black clay and after digging deeply, you can find gray clay that can make good quality and expensive bricks.”
“I took this picture of the tiles to show development. When you use them, it is like taking a step forward. Making tiles requires a special clay that you cannot find everywhere. Tiles are less expensive than metal sheets and last for many years.”
Footnotes
1. Taro is a white-fleshed root vegetable that has a mildly sweet taste and a texture like potato. It is widely grown and eaten in Burundi.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
