October 24, 2020 is a day that will go down in the history books of Long Miles Coffee. The date marks our official launch of Long Miles Kenya, and our first day of coffee harvest in Kirinyaga County. Not long after that, our first fully washed micro-lots of the season hit the drying tables.
Thunguri Washing Station in Kirinyaga County, Kenya
How did Long Miles Kenya start?
In partnership with Haron Wachira from Akili Holdings Ltd., we have refurbished Thunguri Coffee Factory in Kirinyaga County, Mount Kenya (just east of Nyeri County). In the past, the coffee factory existed to serve the Wachira family and a few of their neighbors who grow coffee in the region. While the Akili Group is not solely focused on coffee, we share the same vision of working with small-scale farmers to improve their coffee production, access to markets, and the price paid for the coffee they produce. Long Miles Kenya will be a long-term partnership with the Wachira family, and the communities of coffee growers in the Mount Kenya region.
During a year [2020] in which travel was seemingly impossible, our founders, head of quality control, managing director, and story team were able to visit and connect with a community of coffee growers in Kirinyaga County who are committed to producing high quality Kenyan coffee. Check out the highlights from our team’s visit here. We’ve sown the seeds for our Coffee Scout program, and will soon start building a team of young agronomists whose mission will be to work alongside our partner coffee growers, empowering them with best farming practices and any support that they might need to produce quality coffee.
How did the harvest season go?
In our inaugural coffee season, (a low harvest year for coffee growers around the country), we collected and processed a small volume of cherry from twenty partner coffee farmers living around Thunguri Coffee Factory, modelling how we produce micro-lots in Burundi. While our inaugural harvest season in Kenya may seem low, building trust within a new community takes time. We’re still listening to, learning from, and getting to know the communities of coffee farming families in the region.
Our team also visited and worked on quality control measures with other farmer-owned coffee washing stations as well as private estates in the region, and cupped through the coffees that they produced this season. Our intention is always to produce our own coffee, but in these early days of establishing Long Miles Kenya we will also be sharing the coffees produced by other coffee washing stations that we enjoyed tasting on the cupping table.
Haron Wachira of Akili Holdings Ltd., and Ben Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles Coffee, at Thunguri Washing Station
We’ve also been thinking about the possibility of starting a Long Miles Coffee Farm in Western Kenya for a while. After looking for over a year, we’ve found a piece of land at 2200masl, close to the edges of a national forest park in Western Kenya. Follow the updates that Ben shared during his recent trip to Kenya here. We’ll soon be planting our first SL-28 coffee trees on this piece of land, pursuing regenerative farming practices. We’ll also continue the works of our reforestation project, Trees For Kibira, in this region, planting out green belts of trees, and encouraging the practice of shade-grown coffee.
Where can I find Long Miles Kenya coffee?
We’ll keep you updated on where you’ll soon be able to find a bag of roasted Long Miles Kenya coffee. In the meantime, we’re receiving pre-shipment sample materials of our Kenyan coffees over the next couple of weeks. If you’re interested in receiving samples, please let us know!
“To have a washing station at Ninga is like a country that fought for independence, and got it. I will always celebrate this victory. No one will take it from us.”
We have been thinking about building a coffee washing station on Ninga hill for years. It’s been on our minds ever since we opened the doors of Bukeye, the first washing station that we built, for our inaugural coffee harvest in Burundi. We wrote about this not so long ago. Looking back, it has taken us close to seven years to make Ninga Washing Station happen.
Ninga hill is seated in the Butaganzwa Commune, an incredibly competitive and politically-charged area to work in. During those early years of producing coffee, we found that coffee farmers from Ninga and its surrounding sub-hills were streaming into our Bukeye Washing Station, walking more than fifteen kilometres (a journey that can take up to three hours by foot) to deliver their cherries. After speaking with some of these farmers and visiting their coffee farms, our team soon realized that they were producing quality coffee but didn’t want to deliver their cherries to other nearby washing stations because they felt like they couldn’t trust them with their coffee. Corruption, unbalanced scales, mistreatment of the coffee farming community, and delayed payments for coffee delivery broke farmers’ trust with other washing stations that over-promised and under-delivered.
“Times are not the same. I still remember when I was imprisoned because I refused to stop delivering my own coffee at Bukeye Washing Station. There was a strong hope of having a washing station at home. One night, during that time, I sat in my house thinking about the future of my coffee, but I couldn’t see it.”
– Tharcisse from Ninga hill in Burundi.
Hearing a similar, disheartening account from people on Ninga hill over and over again, it was clear to our team that something needed to change.
2017
That opportunity presented itself to us near the end of 2017, when we were able to buy a piece of land seated at 1900masl on Ninga hill that was flanked by the Nkokoma River.
2018
We applied to the National Coffee Board at the beginning of the year for authorization to start construction of the washing station. It took ten months for the board to set up a “technical commission” to check that the land had everything it needed. Does it really belong to Long Miles? Check. Is there a fair distance between where our washing station will go and other washing stations in the area? Check. Would coffee farmers in the area find it valuable to have another washing station here? Check. Would processing coffee here have any negative implications on the environment? Check. Will the washing station’s activities be profitable? Check.
2019
In October, more than a year after the technical commission had been set up, we were finally able to sign off all of the necessary paperwork and got permission to start the build of Ninga Washing Station. However, the country’s coffee sector was going through major shifts at the time. The restructuring of Burundi’s National Coffee Board coupled with rumblings of the government nationalizing the coffee sector caused a number of delays for the start of construction, and a landslide of uncertainty for coffee producers in the country.
2020
The new National Coffee Board was in place, and the rumours of nationalizing Burundi’s coffee sector were at bay. With harvest opening early April, forty-five newly built drying tables, and our McKinnon yet to be installed, we decided to start producing our first natural processed micro-lots of the season- the only coffees to be processed at Ninga Washing Station that year. By the end of August, we held the first farmer payday day at our official Ninga Washing Station site and celebrated alongside our partnering coffee farmers.
“For five years, I’ve didn’t participate in payday because it was far from home. I used to pay someone to go and collect my money on payday. I was so happy to meet with other people from around the entire hill and even saw a friend that I hadn’t seen in twenty years! I thought that she might have died because so many from our generation have. It was a great day.”
– Matilda, a seventy-five year-old old coffee farmer from Ninga hill.
What does building Ninga Washing Station mean for the future of coffee on Ninga hill?
“Having a washing station in our area is a big development, not only for coffee farmers but for everyone in our community.”
During the construction of the washing station, 200 hundred people were employed representing almost the same numbers of households from the community. We’ve been encouraged to hear that the washing station will bring change for those growing coffee in the area too.
“What is important is that we now have a washing station at home. Things at the washing station are organized, the farmer card system is fair, and the scales are good. You’re not stealing our coffee. This is encouraging.”
– Leonard, coffee farmer from Gikungere, close to Ninga hill.
Many farmers from Ninga hill won’t have to walk as far to deliver their cherries, which will help to shorten the time between coffee being picked and coffee being pulped at our washing station. This shortened time helps to reduce the risk of enzymatic reactions taking place within the coffee cherries that could impart unwanted flavour to the finished cup of coffee, and allows for the greatest potential of consistency going into pulping.
“I thought about stopping to grow coffee, but glory to God, the hope that was in me did not accept defeat! This is a victory. It is a miracle! I helped to build the washing station, and am now working as a guard. I have a story to tell to my grandchildren. Ninga Washing Station is bringing a new beginning of growing coffee. In my mind, I am like a new coffee farmer. It is amazing.”
– Tharcisse from Ninga hill in Burundi.
With our newly fitted McKinnon and the final touches happening at the washing station, we’re looking forward to producing fully washed and natural process coffees this season. We’ll also be experimenting with anaerobic lots, so keep your eyes peeled for our updates when coffee harvest opens in Burundi next month!
written by Kristy Carlson, co-founder and Story Director of Long Miles Coffee.
As my children’s feet hit the earth in Kenya this past December, their whole beings shifted into a truer version of themselves. The joke was up. The mirage of who I had seen them be for two years in the US dropped away. First buds of spring in human form, they unfurled to embrace it all in real time. Their bodies collectively took the deepest breath that they had taken in two years. I may have been doing the same- it was good to be back.
People often ask me how our trip to Kenya went. That in itself feels odd. I’m so used to correcting the vernacular of the word trip with the response of, “It wasn’t a trip- we actually live there.” But we don’t live in East Africa anymore. We really don’t. It’s still a strange fact.
Elizabeth from Kericho in Western Kenya.
So why Kenya? Why now…. during a global pandemic? Isn’t producing coffee in Burundi enough? Like many things within our company, it came down to relationship.
Ben met Haron at a coffee conference in early 2017. Haron was a keynote speaker sharing about his work with the organization he had started, Akili Group. His desire to positively impact his Kenyan family and neighbors through agriculture caught Ben’s attention and lead to back-and-forth discussions over the following years.
Haron and Margaret Wachira
Years ago, Haron’s uncle had started Thunguri Coffee Factory, near Mount Kenya. It began as a small coffee factory dedicated to Haron’s family and a few neighboring farmers, but for the last two decades the coffee factory has sat idle as aging equipment and leaders could not maintain its profitability. Haron’s passion to revitalize the coffee factory and find new in-roads to improve not only the coffee but his neighbors’ livelihoods felt like a partnership meant for us.
There are the things we did to make the season go around. Tile fermentation tanks. Check. Replace McKinnon. Check. Build new drying beds. Check. Send Jimmy in for quality control. Check. Bring Joy over to help collect farmer stories. Check. Send Raphael in to build relationships. Check. But the real privilege of partnership was having lunch at Grandma Margaret’s house. Margaret is Haron’s wife and by all accounts, especially by our eleven-year-old Neo’s, she makes the best chapati and mandazi in the land. Lunch at her house is a privilege. Leave your shoes at the door and be prepared to be treated like family and a treasured guest all at once.
The larger vision for Long Miles Kenya is not only to work with Haron and his family, but also to have a farm in Western Kenya. This farm has been a dream for many years and we’ve already met many challenges while trying to bring it to fruition. Anxiety. Sleeplessness. Sometimes they won’t leave us even though we’ve left Africa. One thing we learned while beginning Long Miles in Burundi is that most things in life worth doing are held in paradox. Pain and gratitude cycling in tandem. Hardship and joy weaving together. You can watch some of Ben’s musings in his search for land for the farm in Kenya here on our Instagram feed.
Small steps. This is how change happens. Can change be found in the dramatic upheaval or the unexpected right turn? Absolutely. But, more often than not, it is nuanced and shadowed. Change is the vein pulsing and moving through a larger thing. It is waking up and realizing that your newborn baby boy can legally drive a car. It is pushing the flywheel for what seems like a lifetime before it finally ticks over and dreams become reality. Days. They don’t seem like much, especially in a pandemic where they bleed like a monochromatic watercolor into one. The sun rises, then it sets. Sometimes we crave the sunset. The darkness. The doneness. Days aren’t always the focus of our bigger life “goals” but they are the smallness that keeps us all alive. We need the smallness. Small steps. Small daily choices that build a lifetime. Days are the little “yeses” to the future that we barely whisper out loud. With them we can collectively feel a wind under our sails. Change is coming. Hope is near. Long Miles Kenya… is near.
We’re often asked the question, “What does a ‘typical day’ in the life of Long Miles Coffee look like?”
The truth? It depends on when you ask. Although coffee harvest only happens once a year in Burundi and usually lasts around three months (sometimes more), growing and producing coffee is a year-round effort. On any given day of the week, the Long Miles team could be spread out between the country’s capital, or upcountry at our washing stations where coffee is grown. For the thousands of smallholder coffee farmers that we work with, a “typical day” is completely different from our own. The time that coffee farmers in Burundi spend on farming activities is divided between a multitude of crops, not just focused on coffee.
Here’s a glimpse at what an “average” year in the life of Long Miles Coffee in Burundi looks like:
JANUARY-FEBRUARY
It’s the beginning of the year. The country is experiencing “impeshi”, which translated from Kirundi (the local language spoken in Burundi) means “small dry season”. Depending on the area and soil structure, farmers are planting a variety of crops in this season, especially beans, potatoes, and peas. If coffee farmers have access to insecticides, they will be spraying them on their coffee trees as well as weeding their coffee farms. Some will even start pruning their coffee trees.
January is usually the time that our head of Production and Quality Control, Seth Nduwayo, leads our annual Coffee Quality and Production Training. It’s also the time when we start preparing the annual calendar for our social and environmental impact projects: PIP (Integrated Farm Plan), Farmer Field School, Trees For Kibira, and Womxn and Youth Empowerment Programs.
Joy Mavugo from the Story team connecting with a partner coffee farmer.
The Story team, lead by Joy Mavugo, is out in the coffee hills, connecting with coffee farmers to hear their thoughts in the weeks that prelude coffee harvest. Most importantly, this is when we start applying for our annual production license- something that coffee producers in Burundi must do at the start of each year. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to open our washing stations for cherry collection or begin processing the first coffees of the season.
Every week, the Long Miles Coffee Scouts are visiting each of the hills that we collect coffee from, checking on the health of our own coffee farms, meeting with Farmer Field School team members and teaching best agricultural practices, making note of the visible effects of climate change in the coffee hills, keeping a record of the number of antestia caught, distributing and planting seedlings from our Trees For Kibira nurseries. To diversify our coffee farms, our team at Heza Washing Station is maintaining the handbuilt cowsheds and laying down new fodder for our two mama cows and their calves.
Together with our washing station managers and production teams, the Coffee Scout leaders are also holding meetings with community development officers and partner coffee farmers, hearing from them if there were any challenges or issues during the previous coffee harvest and discussing ways to resolve this before the upcoming coffee harvest.
MARCH-JUNE
The country is experiencing its biggest rainy season of the year. The coffee cherries are red, ripening, and ready to be picked. The antestiabug (the insect thought to be linked to the Potato Taste Defect) thrives during this time because the cherries are soft and sweet, making it easier for the bug to bore holes into the cherry skins. Farmers are scouting for these bugs in their coffee trees and if they find them, are removing them by hand.
The end of March usually marks the opening of coffee harvest in Burundi, and coffee farmers will spend most of their days hand-picking cherries then walking to deliver them to the nearest washing station or collection point. Generally, other crops aren’t planted in this season because coffee is on everyone’s mind.
April and May roll around, and coffee harvest is in full swing. It’s one of the busiest times of year for our team. The Coffee Scouts spend their days between guiding coffee farmers through selective cherry picking on their farms and at the washing stations or collection points, assisting with farmer reception and cherry quality control. Our team also works alongside our partner coffee farmers, harvesting cherries from the Long Miles Coffee Farms. Each delivery of cherry is processed, either as a fully washed, natural, or honey-processed coffees, and left to dry on raised drying tables.
The Story team spends these weeks following our team’s activities, connecting with coffee farmers on their farms, and documenting their harvest, or at the washing stations following the production of coffee.
This is usually the time that we get to welcome our roasting partners in Burundi to experience a slice of coffee harvest, see coffee in production, connect with our team and partner coffee farmers, and join us around the cupping table to taste a selection of fresh crop coffees.
JULY-AUGUST
The start of July usually signals that coffee harvest is coming to a close in Burundi. Most of the parchment coffee is either off the tables or about to come off. Our washing stations no longer receive coffee cherries, and our team’s focus shifts to the dry mill.
Our Production and Quality team at the dry mill is focused on constructing micro-lots and preparing coffees for export. They are regularly sending samples to our Long Miles Coffee lab, where hundreds of cups of coffee are cupped, analysed, and scored by our team before being sent as samples to our roasting partners the world over. This work starts in July and continues until the end of the year.
The country-wide coffee pruning campaign officially opens, and the Coffee Scouts are helping coffee farmers to identify which coffee trees should be pruned or stumped. All around farm maintenance is happening at the same time: weeding, applying organic fertilizers, and mulching the ground to keep it moist during the upcoming dry season.
At the helm of our Social and Environmental Impact Leader, Epa Ndikumana, the Coffee Scouts are also collecting samples of soil for testing, and analysing the benefits of intercropping banana trees with coffee on our coffee farms. Our Story team is there to capture it all: the dry mill, the post-harvest activities, and most importantly, farmer payments.
Farmer Payday is the one day of the year when all of the coffee farming communities that we work with receive payment for the coffee cherries that they delivered to us during harvest season. The money that most farmers earn from growing coffee is spent on their children’s school tuition and supplies, home repairs, and investing in other income-earning projects. In the weeks leading up to payday, our team works hard behind the scenes, counting money and preparing each farmer’s payment. Hill by hill, each farmer that we work with is paid for every kilogram of coffee cherry that they delivered to a Long Miles Washing Station or collection point.
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER
The country is experiencing “agatas”, which translated from Kirundi means “small rainy season”. These are the months that are considered the main planting season in Burundi. Whatever farmers choose to grow is planted at this time.
The mature coffee trees start to flower- depending on the amount of rainfall in the country- and the coffee cherries are in the early stages of developing. This is the time for coffee farmers to be maintaining their coffee nurseries, planting new coffee trees, and weeding their plantations. Those who have access to lime and fertilizer will start applying it on their coffee farms.
The coffees at the dry mill continue to be milled, bagged, and processed before being loaded onto trucks and headed to our roasting partners across the world.
Meanwhile, the Coffee Scouts are evaluating the growth and survival rate of the Trees For Kibira seedlings in the nurseries. As the year comes to a close, a bonus payment is made to the coffee farmers who delivered high quality cherries throughout the season.
There’s no short way of answering the question, “What does a ‘typical day’ look like for you?” No matter the year, there’s no small amount of words to share with you what producing coffee in Burundi looks like for our team. As we write this, the coffee cherries have already started to ripen, rain has fallen, and our team has started preparing for the upcoming harvest season. We can’t wait to share what this year holds with you!
Coffee has a storied history in Burundi. It was introduced to the country in the 1920s under Belgian colonial rule. By the early 1930s, all of the farmers in the country were given coffee seedlings and forced to cultivate them with very little resources, support, or compensation to do so.
“I started growing coffee when Burundi was still colonized by the Belgians. During that time growing coffee was very different compared to today. First of all, we were growing coffee by force. Sometimes, we were even beaten. We had no idea of what we were doing. What I remember is that they [Belgian colonizers] used to tell us that we must cultivate coffee, because it will help us in the future.” – Charles Ntandikiye, 83-year-old farmer from Gaharo hill.
“First of all, we were growing coffee by force.”
Shortly after the country’s independence in 1962, the coffee sector was privatized. But by 1972, the government had regained control over it. In 1993, the country’s first set of democractic elections took place and the first president was voted into power. Not long after that, the president was assassinated during an attempted coup d’état. The weeks that followed this were marked by civil war and violence; a rebel campaign encouraging farmers to rip out their coffee trees to destabilize the economy. Many people- both in the city and in the rural parts of the country- fled from their land, seeking safer regions elsewhere in Burundi or crossing the borders into neighboring Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some stayed where they were the entire time.
Those who did eventually return often came back only to find that their land had been displaced or claimed by someone else. Since then, the coffee sector has slowly been returning to its previously privatized state.
“Although I started cultivating coffee by force, I didn’t stop when the Belgians left the country because I realized that what they had told us was true. I have seen the benefits of the coffee crop in my family’s life. When I’ve gotten money from coffee, I’ve paid for school fees, bought clothes, and paid my workers. I will cultivate coffee for the rest of my life.”
“I will cultivate coffee for the rest of my life.”
Charles Ntandikiye, a Burundian coffee farmer, stands amongst his coffee trees.
Not all farmers feel the same way as Charles does. Over the years, we’ve heard many reports from farmers that they’ve since ripped out the coffee trees from their farms and planted beans or potatoes instead. When your introduction to growing coffee was by force and its history stained by political instability and conflict, it’s understandably hard to be passionate about growing it.
But, the Long Miles Coffee Scouts are working to see this change.
The Long Miles Coffee Scouts walking to visit Farmer Field School team members on their farms.
Together with Epa Ndikumana, Social and Environmental Impact Leader at Long Miles, the Coffee Scouts have formed Farmer Field Schools (FFS). Why? To equip any interested farmers with the resources, support, or encouragement that they need to continue growing coffee.
The only criteria for becoming a FFS team member is this: you must be a coffee farmer.
Before starting the first field school, the Coffee Scouts held a meeting on each of the hills that we collect coffee from, asking the coffee farming communities in these regions if they were interested in creating model coffee farms. Those who wanted to join were trained in best agricultural practices and every week since then have been meeting up on a host coffee farm.
Gervais Ngendabanka, a Bukeye Farmer Field School team member, about to prune his coffee trees.
Together, they get stuck in helping with the farming activities that need to be done on the host farm that day: from planting to pruning, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, mulching, scouting for antestia bugs, and restoring soil health. It’s not just the Farmer Field School team members who can take part; anyone from the farming community can join them to observe, ask questions, share ideas, problem-solve, and learn from what’s happening on these host farms.
“I started growing coffee in 1995, but I only started pruning my trees five years ago when I heard about it from the Coffee Scouts. Pruning is very important! It has helped to increase the quantity of cherries my coffee trees produce. I’ve also heard that it increases the quality of the coffee, but I don’t know much about that. Pruning is also hard because you have to wait three years until the trees start producing cherries again.” – Odule Manirakiza, Bukeye FFS team member from Gaharo hill.
A group of Farmer Field School team members from Bukeye.
Since the first field school started back in 2015, the team members have planted coffee trees, nitrogen-fixing plants, green manures, a mix of indigenous plants, and shade trees on their farms. Between 2015-2017, the 287 FFS members spread between Bukeye and Heza Washing Station have doubled their yield of coffee cherry production. The Bukeye FFS team members have seen an increase in yield of coffee cherry from 1kg to 2.1kg per tree, while the Heza FFS team members have seen an increase from 1.5kg to 3kg per tree.
Unfortunately, in 2019, there was a noticeable decline in the FFS team members’ cherry production due to the limited access to fertilizer in the country, and the compounding effect of climate change.
Selectively hand-picking coffee cherries.
During the peak of coffee harvest in Burundi, the FFS team members usually only meet once a week on a host farm to learn how to selectively hand-pick, float, and sort coffee cherries at home before delivering them to the nearest Long Miles Washing Station. In 2020, it was observed that because most of the FFS team members had developed these practices, they didn’t need to spend any unnecessary time at our washing stations re-sorting their cherries for quality.
Up until now, these FFS lots have been processed together with the ~5,500 farming families who deliver to our Long Miles Washing Stations. 2020 was the first year that we’ve collected and processed FFS lots separately to see if the team members’ training and collective efforts have also made a difference in the quality of their coffee on the cupping table.
According to our quality assurance team, at 86.5, the average cup score for FFS lots was almost exactly the same as the average cup score for non-FFS lots. A statistic that stood out as markedly different, however, was the percentage of lots that were not deemed to be micro-lot quality. When our team scores day lots, they need to make a fairly quick assessment of a large number of coffees. For our purposes, the most important quality cutoff point is 86. Coffees that score below 86 points get blended into our “Hills” lots. Coffees that score above 86 get sold as micro-lot quality. Of the non-FFS lots produced in 2020, ~19% did not meet our quality standards to be sold as micro-lot quality coffee. For FFS lots, however, this number was only ~17%. While two percent is small, it is not statistically insignificant as it represents hundreds of pounds of finished green coffee.
However, if we were to focus solely on the improvement of a coffee’s cup score as the main outcome of FFS, we would fall short of the very reason for its existence. Farmer Field School is not just about growing quality Burundi coffee; it’s about the practice of showing up every week. It’s a commitment from farmers to learn from, listen to, and exchange ideas with each other on which farming practices are most effective. It’s about asking questions like, “Have the farming practices we use made a notable impact on the productivity of our coffee trees; on the biodiversity of our coffee farms; on soil health?”
Partially stumped coffee tree.
Although the idea of running a Farmer Field School was initiated by Epa and facilitated by the Coffee Scouts, the farmers involved have taken full ownership of the field school and its activities.
“In 2017, I stumped all of the coffee trees on my farm. Then, in 2020, I harvested double the yield of cherry that I used to get before pruning. The Coffee Scouts have helped me to understand the different ways of taking care of my coffee farms. I remember the first time they told me to stump my coffee trees, because they are old. In my heart I was thinking, “These young people don’t know what they’re saying. Cutting down coffee trees? No way!” But now, I’m encouraging other farmers to do the same thing.” – Firmin Niyibizi, Bukeye FFS team member from Gaharo hill.
In my heart I was thinking, “These young people don’t know what they’re saying. Cutting down coffee trees? No way!”
Farmer Field School has encouraged these communities to continue growing coffee; to not give up hope despite the incredible challenges that they have faced in the past and may continue to face in the future. It has also empowered the communities of coffee farmers we partner with to work together in teams rather than in isolation; to continue to share ideas and use the farming practices that are most effective in improving the productivity of Burundi coffee.
Lately, the thought of sitting down to reflect on the past year has felt like an overwhelming task. What really happened to 2020? It goes without saying that last year was unlike any other. For us, 2020 held challenges that were unique to the season and challenges that aren’t all that ‘unprecedented’ when it comes to producing coffee.
The year started off much like any other. Our team worked alongside our neighboring coffee farming communities, preparing coffee farms for the opening of the coffee season and expectant for a harvest better than the previous one. Everything seemed to be on track until the Burundian national coffee board announced a sudden change in regulations.
In order to qualify for an annual production licence, coffee producers were required to have 75% of their forecasted crop in the bank [to be held in trust to pay farmers]. Coming off the backend of a harvest where 25% of the country’s normal export was produced, having these funds in advance was unreasonable for most producers- ourselves included. If any coffee producers were unable to comply with the new regulations, they would lose their washing station(s) along with the permission to produce coffee ever again.
Scrambling to comply in time while the threat of a derailed harvest hung in the air made for a hard couple of months, but thankfully we were able to find a way. Then came the news of how rapidly the virus was spreading across the globe. Neighboring East African countries quickly plunged into strict lockdowns and the Burundi airport shut down. It was the first time in a long time that we had to ask visitors not to travel to Burundi for coffee harvest.
All things considered, there was still a lot of beauty and joy found in harvest. The coffee trees continued to fruit and ripen. With hand-washing stations and social distancing in place, we were able to keep the washing stations open for cherry delivery. We celebrated from both near and far with members of our team as they welcomed babies into the world, got married, and as their families grew. We were able to pay coffee farmers on time for their hard work this season! Coffee was exported from Burundi faster than ever before. We continued with the build of Ninga, our third Long Miles Washing Station. Long Miles Kenya was launched, and we saw our first inaugural coffee harvest season in Kirinyaga County, Mount Kenya take place. The seed has been planted and preparations are now underway for the formal launch of Long Miles Uganda.
The year was certainly marked by hardship, loss and a specific set of words constantly strung together. “Unprecedented.” “Uncertainty.” “New normal.” It was also a year marked by bravery and courage; community and connection. Thank you for standing alongside us; for continuing to support Long Miles Coffee.
What lies ahead for us.
In 2017, Ben was sitting with a group of people at The Pulley Collective and an esteemed presenter proclaimed, “There is no sustainable coffee in the world.” Ben was speaking right after him about the hope we see in Burundi coffee, but he approached the stage with the wind out of his sails thinking, “Is it really possible to create a sustainable coffee company?” Ever since that day our company has been combating the harsh realities of coffee’s future with visions of hope. And in 2020, not only was the future of coffee challenged, but the human race’s future as well. It’s been a tough time to keep hoping, but also an impossible time not to grip onto the ship of hope with everything we’ve got.
Here’s how we plan to keep hope alive in 2021:
A coffee farm in Kenya. We hope to start one. And that’s it for now.
This year we started a pilot project in Kenya and we have loved the results. We hope to continue this project and expand it in 2021.
We hope to build a community washing station and a model coffee farm in Uganda.
We hope to fully open our Ninga Washing Station in Burundi. It has taken three years for us to get government approval for this washing station. Farmers who currently spend hours walking to the Bukeye Washing Station will have their livelihoods vastly improved by the presence of the Ninga Washing Station. With a keen focus on coffee quality, we will be using newly designed sealable fermentation silos, one of the newest approaches to coffee fermentation.
We have plans for the expansion of Trees For Kibira, our reforestation and environmental impact program, within both Burundi and Kenya.
An additional founder’s hope is that we live out of a place of thriving, and support our team to do the same. We are not speaking about a place of great excess, but we have often lived in a place of survival only, cutting all expenses and depending on unreliable pre-financing methods to pay farmers and scrape by. While this can be an efficient way to produce coffee, the instability and stress of it doesn’t always honour the people on our team who work so hard to grow, produce, export and sell this product that we all love so much. We hold a deep belief that the only way to make coffee truly sustainable is to honour the value chain and everyone in it.
How do you plan to keep hope alive in 2021? We’d love to hear from you.
written by Ben Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles Coffee.
When Kristy and I started Long Miles Coffee we never dreamed of doing anything beyond producing coffee outside the small village of Bukeye in the high mountains of Burundi. Ten years after our first days in Burundi we find ourselves with three washing stations in Burundi and fresh into the inaugural season of Long Miles Kenya.
Long Miles Kenya is a four year old idea that really started to become a dream and vision for Long Miles Coffee over the past couple years. As COVID gripped the world, I really didn’t see the possibility of our Kenya launch. What I didn’t account for was our Kenyan partner, Haron Wachira, and his capacity and organizational ability to accelerate our vision into reality.
Down the road I’ll share more about how and why we started Long Miles Kenya as well as how we elected to do so in the epicenter of what is Kenya’s finest growing area on the slope of Mount Kenya in central Kenya. What I want to share here is what we have found as we launched into production.
I really wanted to see just how much SL 28 and 34 were still on the slopes of the mountain. On my last exploratory trips, I’ve found Batian and Ruiru being pushed hard on farmers across Kenya. While those Hybrids are quite good, they don’t have the “wow” factor that many in the speciality coffee world have come to love and desire in Kenyan coffee that we find in the SL varieties.
I had our washing station separate two lots from our Kirinyaga farm and also two lots from the neighbors we are leasing land from to produce our micro-lots. These lots will represent our launch into Kenyan coffee and showcase the difference between the Hybrids ands SLs.
Kristy Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles photographing farmers delivering cherries to the coffee factory.
Kristy and I are visiting our different neighbors and hearing their story of life and coffee. What we’ve heard is person after person frustrated with the price they are getting for their coffee. For all the $3-5 cups of Kenyan coffee they hear about being consumed around the world they continue to struggle to even maintain the price they were receiving ten years ago. On top of this, labour prices have increased for harvesting and maintaining the coffee and inputs have drastically increased in cost. “Why keep producing coffee?” many ask. Us working alongside these neighbors to harvest and produce coffee this season gives them some hope and it doesn’t impact their neighbors, they tell me. “How sustainable is coffee in Kenya when only a handful of us receive a better price and help?” And then I request more SL coffee… and I’m taken into the fields and shown the difference between the hybrids and the SL plots. The Hybrids are heavy with cherry and have no noticeable fungus, bugs or issues. The disappearing SL plots are producing half as much and suffering with fungus, insect damage, and CBD (Coffee Berry Disease). If quality in the cup isn’t rewarded to the farmers, I fully understand why we are going to see the end of any SL coffee from Kenya.
The Carlsons visiting neighbors Joyce and Ephantus on their organic SL34 coffee farm. Masks were vigilantly worn during the visit and only removed for this photo.
And yet…there is hope for the SL. If we didn’t see it, I would have to call it a myth or legend. Farmer Joseph has invited us to see his organic SL farm. He’s not one of our neighbors so we are not producing coffee with him, but his story is too unreal not to take a drive to see him. Joseph is harvesting 100kg of cherry per tree (no, this isn’t a typo) and it’s fully organic! We are taking notes and listing the protocols needed to achieve this, and as we wrap up harvest in year one of Long Miles Kenya you can be sure that we are going to be implementing the same strategy as Joseph did to produce his 100kg SL harvest.
I don’t have the space or time to dive into production and quality compromises we have observed in the surrounding factories. What I can say is that with Seth and Raphael coming in from Burundi, and Jimmy arriving for us from Uganda, we are helping implement quality control procedures that we use in Burundi along with an excellent and dedicated management team in place under Haron. Our first taste from the first day’s harvest just happened and all that I can say is that I hope this initial harvest can all taste this good. If it does, my hopes for some of Kenya’s finest coffee will be coming out of Long Miles Kenya washing station.
Cultivating Connection With Coffee Farmers Through Cameras
The coffee farmers we work with have always been central to who we are, but until 2017 their stories were always filtered and shared by me- an outsider looking in. We began Long Miles thinking we knew what farmers needed, but could we really know if we never experienced life through their eyes? In the first years of Long Miles we were so absorbed in the challenges of building a business in Burundi that we didn’t slow down enough to consider this.
Milda conducting the first round of Before + Now in 2017
Milda with Before + Now participant Dorothy
In early 2017 a PhD candidate named Milda Rosenberg changed that. She came from Norway to intern with us in Burundi and she brought with her some cameras. Her goal was to give cameras to coffee farmers so that she could learn more about what they valued and their challenges. I had never heard of this approach and was really intrigued. In her months with us, we overwhelmed Milda with all sorts of young start up company needs, “Fire up our Instagram account!” “Help with farmer pay-day!” “Take the truck and wait in line for fuel!” “Photograph harvest!” Milda ended up handing out the cameras to farmers when she had just a few weeks remaining in Burundi. Despite the truncated time table, the results of her project opened our eyes to a new way of connecting and thinking. After Milda left, I was determined to carry on the project and in 2018 we re-launched it.
Once we began we got glimpses into farmers’ everyday lives, which felt like sacred ground. It was such an honor to meet newborn babies, attend funerals, and learn to love their sons and daughters through their photographs. Our team sat for hours on small wooden village benches hearing important stories and digesting meaningful photographs. Images of devastating rains wiping away valuable coffee trees were sandwiched between pictures of smiling children and church services- a testament to the complexity of life. We learned new things about how farmers approach the painstaking and time consuming acts of caring for, harvesting, and transporting coffee.
Forty farmers, twenty from Bukeye and twenty from Heza, participated in Before + Now. This is such a small amount of what they photographed and had to say- but it’s a start in sharing the beauty of their lives and perspectives.
We met Antoine standing barefoot on his farm, surrounded by coffee trees. At fifty-four years old, he’s no stranger to farming coffee. As a young boy, he helped his parents on their farm by collecting leaves for mulch and learned how to prune and stump coffee trees. Since then, there have been significant changes for coffee farmers in Burundi- not all good. ⠀
“Thirty years ago, the soil was good. Even without fertilizer or mulch, our production was enough. Now, the soil is not good. We have to work hard to find mulch and our production is low without fertilizer. We use fertilizer from the government but sometimes it comes late and when it’s late, it cannot feed the coffee trees’ roots.”
Back in 2011, before Long Miles was founded, the coffee farming communities that we were interested in working with were producing less than half a kilogram of coffee cherries per tree. Although it’s not the only solution to improve soil health and productivity, we quickly realized that having access to fertilizer could significantly impact farmers’ annual coffee production and income.
In Burundi, however, fertilizer is a state-controlled product that is only accessible through the national coffee board. One has to apply and pay for fertilizer in advance- something that most subsistence farmers in Burundi can’t afford to do. That first year we put down an advance on fertilizer for the communities that we were working with, but it soon became apparent that there was no guarantee it would arrive in time for the coffee season; no guarantee there would be enough for everyone who needed it.
“Since then, there have been significant changes for coffee farmers in Burundi- not all good.”
By the time the fertilizer did arrive, the rainy season had just begun. Any fertilizer that was used on farmers’ land washed away with the rain, eventually running off into local water sources. It was incredibly frustrating for our team to stand by and watch this happen. Coffee farmers in Burundi have, for years, been paying for a fertilizer that is delivered too little too late to be useful. This realization was the turning point for our decision to “go organic”. By doing so, we could take control of how we address farming challenges and tackle soil health in a way that could be all-inclusive and better for the environment.
Step onto a coffee farm in Burundi and you may take note that coffee farmers are already using organic practices: homemade compost made from leftover coffee cherry skins and animal waste is fed to the soil, stacks of grass and leaves are collected by hand and placed as mulch around farmers’ crops. These commonly found ‘organic practices’ are not always done by choice, but because of farmers’ limited access to farming inputs.
According to the World Bank, eighty percent of Burundi’s 11.6 million population is employed by the agriculture sector (World Bank, 2020). 600,000 of those 11.6 million households are coffee farmers, which means that one in twenty people depend on coffee in Burundi (African Fine Coffees Association, 2020).
“…one in twenty people depend on coffee in Burundi.”
What would an intentional shift towards organic farming look like in Burundi? Some might argue that not much will change. With limited access to fertilizer, insecticides, and pesticides, smallholder coffee farmers will continue using natural resources and finding innovative ways to source the inputs that they need. On the other hand, a farmer’s cost of production may increase with no guarantee that the practice will pay off; a risk that coffee farmers need to ensure they can afford to take.
As coffee producers, we also need to turn our attention to the policies at the country-level. There is currently an ‘agricultural intensification policy’ that is focused on increasing the country’s crop and food production. The government’s expectations of this policy coupled with smallholder farmers’ ability to source the necessary farming inputs may limit their ability to shift towards organic farming practices.
“What would an intentional shift towards organic farming look like in Burundi?”
Is it worth the risk? An organic certification wouldn’t change the quality of the coffee we produce, and it wouldn’t necessarily mean that coffee can be sold at higher prices. The average Burundian coffee producer might get paid more if they sell their coffee on the commodity market, but we’re not producing commodity coffee; we’re producing specialty coffee. As Epaphras Ndikumana, our Social & Environmental Impact Leader points out, “Most of the coffee produced in Burundi is sold as commodity coffee so whenever there’s potential to scale up a coffee farmer’s profit, it is worth it.”
“Long Miles is not necessarily going to recoup the cost that it takes to get a certification- that’s not the motivating factor. The motivation behind our pursuit of organic farming is so that future generations of coffee farmers in Burundi can farm coffee sustainably.”
Ben Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles Coffee.
We’ve recently heard from coffee producers in Honduras, Brazil, and Colombia that shifting to organic farming is yet to pay off for coffee farmers. Knowing that the transition to organic can take years, if not decades, is it worthwhile considering “going organic” in Burundi?
“If you’re talking about one farmer? Yes. If you’re talking about thousands of coffee farming families who haven’t officially farmed organically before? Again, yes, but it’s a long-term investment.”
Getting all 5,500 coffee farmers that we work with within Burundi certified would be incredibly costly and would require a significant amount of inputs. Even then, it would be hard to control every person’s activities to make sure that their actions maintain the integrity of the organic certification.
“For us, it’s not about the certificate; it’s about farmers having the inputs and knowledge to farm organically themselves. It’s worthwhile pursuing if we want to work in other coffee-growing regions, which we do. Long Miles will be producing coffee at a Kenyan washing station this year. We are also starting an organic coffee farm in Kenya, and would like to start one in Uganda too.”
As coffee producers, we can see the value of shifting to organic farming practices, but is buying and drinking organic coffee important to end-consumers?
“From my experience as a high-end specialty coffee roaster and retailer, organic certification matters to the consumer but not enough to make decisions based on the organic certification. I would classify it as a value add, a bonus to drinking delicious coffee which seems to be the higher priority. While certifications clearly matter to a percentage of consumers it does not seem to be the main driver for customers outside of higher priorities like flavor, origin, price, location of the retailer.”
Oliver Stormshak, co-owner, CEO and Green Coffee Buyer of Olympia Coffee
Our transition towards organic farming is moving at a slower pace than a certification calls for. We’re listening to and learning from the communities of coffee farming families that we work with, along with coffee producers in other nations who have gone before us to determine the feasibility of producing organic coffee. Long Miles’ pursuit of organic farming is a long-term commitment to empowering future generations of coffee farmers with the knowledge and inputs that they need to produce coffee sustainably. With Burundi as our base, we’ll be able to take what we’ve learned to start producing organic coffee in other parts of East Africa too.
