Tag: Kibira

  • The roads to coffee production at Long Miles Coffee

    The roads to coffee production at Long Miles Coffee

    Every coffee that is picked and processed needs a home, which is why coffee production takes different roads within our company.

    Raised drying beds at Long Miles' Bukeye Washing Station in Burundi, East Africa
    Raised drying beds at Bukeye Washing Station in Burundi

    The first road, modeled in Burundi, includes washing station ownership. In Burundi, we work with 5,500 smallholding farmers- who each grow less than a bag of coffee per annum- to produce and bring to market the coffee they grow. To accomplish this, we own three washing stations and work with farmers on eleven unique hills. Another crucial part of this model is farming. We own coffee farms that stand alongside our smallholding farmers. These farms act as model farms for the surrounding communities as well as give us a chance to experiment with and control some of the variables in growing coffee.

    Haron Wachira and Ben Carlson of Long Miles Coffee hand-picking parchment coffee on drying tables at Thunguri Washing Station in Kenya
    Haron Wachira and Ben Carlson hand-sorting coffee at Thunguri Washing Station in Kenya

    The second road coffee production takes within our company is partnership. In Kenya for example, we are partnering with Haron Wachira to rehabilitate and refurbish the Wachira family’s dormant coffee factory and farm located on Mount Kenya, in Kirinyaga County. In our first season, we worked directly with thirty coffee farming families who live in the community. While the Wachira Group is not solely focused on coffee, we share the same vision of working with small-scale coffee farmers to improve their production, access to markets, and the price paid for their coffee.

    Raised drying beds at Long Miles' Heza Washing Station in Burundi, East Africa
    Raised drying beds at Heza Washing Station in Burundi

    We can’t control how much coffee is produced in a season, which is why the third road that coffee production takes at Long Miles is sourcing from partnering coffee producers. Our intention is always to produce our own coffee, but some years we will also share coffees from local partnering coffee producers that have stood out to us on the cupping table. Partnering with these coffees enables us to continue year-round projects and programs that have become essential to who we are, whether that is our team of Long Miles Coffee Scouts, our Trees For Kibira reforestation project, or running Farmer Field Schools– to name a few.

    No matter which of these roads we take, our end goal is the same: producing excellent coffees, uplifting the smallholding farmers who grow them, and meeting you, our roasting partners, where you’re at. You might already know this or be familiar with these names, but these are the coffees that our company produces:

    Long Miles Micro-lots

    To us, micro-lots are coffees that have been carefully curated based on two primary factors: traceable down to a distinct geographical locale where the coffee was grown, and a cup score of 86+ designated by our team. Each delivery of coffee cherry that we receive from our partner farmers at one of our washing stations is sorted and processed differently, depending on the country of origin.

    Kibira Micro-lots

    Kibira micro-lots are coffees that have been processed by coffee producers surrounding our Long Miles Washing Stations. Our cupping lab and quality control team cups through many dozens of lots in order to find the best coffees to partner with. We source these 86+ scoring coffees knowing that at every step of the way they have been processed according to the Long Miles Coffee standard. Partnering with these coffees enables us to continue programs that have become essential to who we are, namely the Long Miles Coffee Scouts and Trees For Kibira. 

    Kibira

    Kibira lots represent coffees that have been sourced from partnering coffee producers. These coffees, ranging in quality and price, are tailored to your needs based on pre-harvest conversations and are typically contracted in larger quantities.

    Hills

    Our priority is to produce coffee that is of micro-lot quality, yet some of the coffees that we process fall slightly below the 86 mark designated by our team. Coffees that score between 84-85 points, are blended together and are traceable by washing station and called “Hills.”

    If you have any questions about our coffee, please get in touch!

  • Trees For Kibira: encouraging future generations of shade-grown Burundi coffee

    Trees For Kibira: encouraging future generations of shade-grown Burundi coffee

    There is an undeniable connection between coffee growers in Burundi, the health of their soil, and the coffee we drink. We’ve been dreaming about an indigenous tree reforestation project in Burundi for the last couple of years. For a long time, we didn’t know what it would look like. All we knew is what we saw: a scarcity of indigenous trees, acidic eroding soils and not nearly enough shade for the changing climate. 

    The Kibira is Burundi’s only indigenous rainforest, tucked away in the North-Western part of the country. The coffee we grow and produce depends on the cool, micro-climates that the forest provides. Whenever we ask neighboring coffee farmers what they think of the Kibira, they often mention fighting and war. The forest was a place where rebel soldiers took refuge during times of unrest. For years, the forest has been stripped of its natural resources and indigenous flora by its surrounding communities. Trees have been cut down for firewood and land cleared by people living on the fringes of the forest, looking for food and land to plant crops. Since the early 1930s, the Kibira has shrunk in size from 123,000 to 74,000 acres, and it’s estimated that deforestation in the region is happening at a rate of 9% per annum.

    “There is an undeniable connection between coffee growers in Burundi, the health of their soil, and the coffee we drink.”

    Indigenous tree seedling sprouting through mulch

    Trees For Kibira is a long term project focused on planting indigenous African trees around every hill in Burundi where our coffee is grown, mitigating the effects of a changing climate and encouraging the practice of sustainably grown coffee. Our hope is that these plantings aid the health of the local rainforest, Kibira Forest, and the coffee growing communities that live near its edge. So far, we have planted 322,000 indigenous and agroforestry trees at a cost of $140 per 1,000 trees. Our goal for the upcoming planting season is to plant 500,000 trees.

    Since 2018, we have distributed 322,000 indigenous and agroforestry trees to 2,700 farmers. This has created a total of 406 jobs (employing 70 women). Our vision is for all 5,100 coffee farmers who we work to be included in the Trees For Kibira activities. The goal for 2020 is leaning towards extending our reach from 2,700 to 3,500 coffee farmers. 

    “It’s estimated that deforestation in the region is happening at a rate of 9% per annum.”

    What we’ve learnt from nearly a decade’s worth of work in Burundi is that community is everything. Even with all the money in the world, we wouldn’t be able to create a long lasting impact without the support of our Burundian community. We’re working hard to build networks which include local government, village leaders, and conservation networks to create the impact we know Burundi needs. Planting trees is not going to solve climate change, but it can help to mitigate its impact. The statistics are startling. Climate change will reduce the global area suitable for coffee by about 50% (Bunn 2015). Added to that, the livelihoods of 100 million people depend on coffee (Pendergrast 1999), many of whom are vulnerable to climate change (Baca et al. 2014).

    Four people in the distance walking across rural Burundian landscape

    “What we’ve learnt from nearly a decade’s worth of work in Burundi is that community is everything.”

    Trees For Kibira is focused on seeing nutrients sewn back into Burundi’s soil for the sake of healthier coffee trees, rejuvenated farms and a sustainable coffee growing future. We would like our neighbors to be empowered to grow their coffee for generations to come and to protect their land against the effects of the changing climate. We believe the impact will be great.

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